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LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


■*| 


Stephen  A.  Douglas 


I  have  struggled  almost  against  hope  to  avert  the  calamities  of  war  and  to  eflFect  a 
reunion  and  reconciliation  with  our  brethren  of  the  South.  I  yet  hope  it  may  be  done, 
but  I  am  not  able  to  point  out  to  you  how  it  may  be.  Nothing  short  of  Providence  can 
reveal  to  us  the  issues  of  this  great  struggle.  Bloody — calamitous — 1  fear  it  will  be. 
May  we  so  conduct  it,  if  a  collision  must  come,  that  we  will  stand  justified  in  the  eyes  of 
Him  who  knows  our  hearts,  and  who  will  judge  our  every  act.  We  must  not  yield  to 
resentments,  nor  to  the  spirit  of  vengeance,  much  less  to  the  desire  for  conquest  or  ambi- 
tion. I  see  no  path  of  ambition  open  in  a  bloody  struggle  for  triumphs  over  my  own 
countrjTnen.  There  is  no  path  of  ambition  open  for  me  in  a  divided  country  after  having 
so  long  served  a*  united  and  glorious  country. — Speech  before  the  Illinois  General  Assembly, 
April  25,  1861. 


ADDRESSES 

Delivered  on  the  occasion 
of  the  celebration  of 

The  One  Hundredth  Anniversary 

of  the 

Birth  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas 


April  twenty-third 

nineteen  hundred  thirteen 

Springfield,  Illinois 


Arranged  for  publication  by 
JAMES     W.    GARNER 

Professor  of  Political  Science 
University  of  Illinois 


4T«*DC«[fi:??|CW«m>  P 


[printed  by  authority  of  the  state  of  Illinois] 
1915 


STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS 


1813  Born,  Brandon,  Vermont,  April  23, 

1828  "Worked  at  cabinet  maker's  trade. 

1830  Moved  with  family  to  Ontario  County,  New  York. 

1830-1832  Student  in  Academy  at  Canandaigua,  New  York. 

1833  Began  study  of  law. 

Left  for  the  west  June  23. 

Arrived  Cleveland,  Ohio.   Serious  sickness  there. 

Arrived  Jacksonville,  Illinois. 

1833-1834     Taught  school  Winchester,  Illinois. 

j~  1834  Admitted  to  bar. 

u 

Q^  1835  Prosecuting  attornev,  Morgan  County,  Illinois. 

Uj  1836  Member  of  House  of  Representatives,  Illinois  Gen- 

V^  eral  Assembly. 

1837  Register  U.  S.  land  office,  Springfield,  lUniois. 

1838  Candidate  for  Congress.  Defeated  by  John  T.  Stuart. 
1840  Appointed  Secretary  of  State  of  Illinois. 

"^  1841  Associate  Justice  Illinois  Supreme  Court. 


H 


1842-1847     Member  of  Congress. 

1847-1861     United  States  Senator. 

1847  Marriage  April  7  to  Miss  Martha  Denny  Martin, 

who  died  January,  1853. 

1856  Married  November  20  to  Miss  Adele  Cutts. 

1858  Lincoln-Douglas  seven  joint  debates  in  Illinois. 

1860  Nominated  for  the  presidency  of  the  United  States 

at  Baltimore,  by  adjourned  convention  of  Dem- 
ocratic party.     Defeated  by  Abraham  Lincoln. 

1861  March  4.     Occupied  place  of  honor  at  inauguration 

of  Abraham  Lincoln  at  "Washington,  D.  C.    Died 
Chicago,  Illinois,  June  3. 


State  Officers 

Edward  F.  Dunne,  Governor 

Barratt  O'Hara,  Lieutenant  Governor 
Harry  Woods,  Secretary  of  State 

James  J.  Brady,  Audtior  of  Public  Accounts 
William  Ryan,  Jr.,  Treasurer 

Francis  G.  Blair,  Supt.  of  Public  Instruction 
Patrick  J.  Lucey,  Attorney  General 

J.  McCan  Davis,  Clerk  of  Supreme  Court 

Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court 

Frank  K.  Dunn,  Chief  Justice 
James  H,  Cartwright  Alonzo  K.  Vickers 

John  P.  Hand  Orrin  N.  Carter 

William  M.  Farmer  George  A.  Cooke 

Joint  Legislative  Committee 

Senate  House 

Walter  I.  IVIanny,  Chairman  Francis  E.  Williamson,  Sec, 

Hugh  S.  Magill,  Jr.  John  M.  Rapp 

W.  Duff  Piercy  Charles  F.  Clyne 

Campbell  S.  Hearn  R.  D  Kirkpatrick 

Kent  E.  Keller  Thomas  Campbell 


Table  of  Contents 


Page 

Introduction  by  James  W.  Gamer 11 

Introductoiy  Remarks  by  Hon.  William  McKinley 19 

Address  by  Hon.  E.  F.  Dunne ....    19 

Invocation  by  Rev.  E.  B.  Rogers 21 

Address  by  Hon.  Robert  D.  Douglas 23 

Address  by  Hon.  James  A.  Reed 29 

Address  by  Hon.  William  Taylor  Davidson 37 

Address  by  Hon.  Everett  Jennings 44 

Introductoiy  Remarks,  evening  session,  by  Hon.  E.  F.  Dunne     50 

Address  by  Hon.  Lawrence  Y.  Sliennan 50 

Address  by  Hon.  James  Hamilton  Le^vis 60 

Address  by  Hon.  Adlai  E.  Stevenson 79 

Letter  from  Hon.  J.  P.  Tumulty 109 

Letter  from  Hon.  Henry  Watterson 110 

Telegram  from  Hon.  Rober-t  M.  Douglas Ill 

Telegram  from  Hon.  Shelby  M.  Cullom 109 

Telegram  from  Hon.  Adlai  E.  Stevenson Ill 

Letter  from  Hon.  Clark  E.  Carr Ill 

Letter  from  Hon.  J.  0.  Cunningham 112 

Letter  from  Hon.  James  B.  Smith 113 

Letter  from  Hen.  Charles  A.  Walker 113 

Letter  from  John  M.  Lansden,  Esq 115 

Letter  from  Hon.  J.  McCan  Davis 118 

Addenda 
Sketches  by  Ethan  Allen  Snively 

Hon.  Adlai  E.  Stevenson  120 

Hon.  Lewis  DuBois  Erwin 124 

Hon.  William  Taylor  Davidson 124 


Program  of  Exercises 

OF  THE 

Douglas  Natal  Day  Centennial  Celebration 

Joint  Session  Forty-eighth  General  Assembly  of  IlUinois 

Hall  of  Representatives 

Wednesday,  April  23,  1913 

T^vo  o'clock  P.M. 

Invocation  -  -  The  Reverend  Euclid  B.  Rogers,  D.D. 
The  Presiding  Officer  -  -  Governor  Edward  F.  Dunne 
Music       ---------        America 

APOLLO  QUARTETTE 

Address  -        -        -  The  Honorable  Robert  D.  Douglas 

Address        -        -        -      United  States  Senator  James  A.  Reed 

\     1     Annie  Laurie 

^^^^^        ■ "^2     Darling  NeUie  Gray 

APOLLO  QUARTETTE 

Address  -  United  States  Senator  James  Hamilton  Lewis 

Address  -  -  -  The  Honorable  William  L.  Davidson 
Music        .-..--    Medlej^  of  Popular  Songs 

APOLLO  QUARTETTE 

Address  -  United  States  Senator  Lawrence  Y.  Shennan 
Address  -  -  -  -  The  Honorable  Everett  Jennings 
Address  -  -  -  -  The  Honorable  xVdlai  E.  Stevenson 
Music     • Illinois 

APOLLO  quartette 


Introduction 

As  the  one-hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  drew  near,  there  arose  a  demand  throughout  the 
State  that  the  occasion  should  be  commemorated  in  a  fitting 
way  by  the  commonwealth  which  he  served  so  long  and  with 
so  much  distinction.  Accordingly  the  Legislature  adopted  the 
following  resolution  for  the  appointment  of  a  committee  to 
arrange  for  a  suitable  celebration  to  be  carried  out  under  the 
auspices  of  the  State : 

"Whereas,  April  23,  1913,  is  the  one  hundredth  anniversary 
of  the  birth  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  was  one  of  Illinois'  fore- 
most sons  of  his  time  and  generation;  and, 

"Whereas,  It  is  fitting  and  proper  that  the  General  Assem- 
bly of  the  State  of  Illinois,  a  State  which  he  so  ably  represented 
in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  and  which  he  also  served 
so  well  as  a  member  of  its  Supreme  Court,  should  pause  in 
its  deliberations  long  enough  to  pay  tribute  to  the  memory  of 
this  man,  one  who  also  did  so  much  at  the  opening  of  the 
Civil  War  to  uphold  the  hands  of  the  then  President,  Abraham 
Lincoluj,  whose  opponent  he  was  for  that  office  and  whose  politi- 
cal competitor  he  had  been  for  years  in  the  political  arena  of 
Illinois  and  the  nation ;  therefore,  be  it 

^'Resolved,  hy  the  Senate,  the  House  of  Representatives  con- 
curring therein.  That  a  committee  of  five  be  appointed  from  each 
house,  who  shall  make  all  the  necessary  arrangements  for  the 
holding  of  a  joint  session  of  the  General  Assembly  on  April  23, 
at  2  o'clock  p.  m.,  in  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
for  the  purpose  of  listening  to  such  appropriate  addresses  as 
the  committee  hereby  authorized  shall  arrange  for." 

The  following  members  of  this  committee  were  appointed 
in  pursuance  of  this  resolution :     From  the  Senate : 
Honorable  Walter  I.  Manny,  chairman. 
Honorable  Hugh  S.  Ma  gill,  Jr. 
Honorable  W.  Duff  Piercy. 
Honorable  Campbell  S.  Hearn. 
Honorable  Kent  E.  Keller. 

From  the  House : 

Honorable  Francis  E.  Williamson,  Secretary. 
Honorable  John  M.  Rapp.  . 

Honorable  Charles  F.  Clyne. 
Honorable  R.  D.  Kirkpatrick. 
Honorable  Thomas  Campbell. 


12 

The  committee  decided  that  the  commemoration  should 
take  the  form  of  a  series  of  addresses  before  a  joinit  session 
of  the  two  houses  of  the  Legislature  and  a  body  of  guests,  to 
whom  invitations  were  sent.  In  the  selection  of  the  speakers 
a  special  effort  was  made  to  secure  persons  of  prominence  in 
this  and  other  states  who  had  been  associated,  politically  or 
otherwise,  with  Mr.  Douglas  during  his  life  time  or  who  had 
personally  known  him.  Owing,  however,  to  the  lapse  of  fifty- 
two  years  since  his  .death,  the  number  of  such  persons  was 
necessarily  small  and  of  those  who  still  survived  some  were 
prevented  from  being  present  through  the  infirmities  of  age 
or  ill  health.  Some  of  theset,  however,  sent  telegrams  or  letters 
in  which  they  expressed  their  hearty  approval  of  the  proposed 
celebration  and  their  admiration  for  Mr.  Douglas. 

The  exercises  took  place  Wednesday  afternoon  and  even- 
ing, April  23,  1913,  in  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
in  the  presence  of  both  houses,  the  State  officers  and  as  large 
a  body  of  invited  guests  as  the  size  of  the  hall  would  accom- 
modate. Addresses  were  delivered  by  Governor  E.  F.  Dunne, 
Honorable  Robert  Douglas,  grandson  of  Stephen  A.,  United 
States  Senator  James  A.  Reed  of  Missouri,  Honorable  "William 
T.  Davidson,  Honorable  Everett  Jennings,  and  United  States 
Senators  Lawrence  Y.  Sherman  and  James  Hamilton  Lewis  of 
Illinois, 

These  addresses,  together  with  a  paper  of  Honorable  Adlai 
E.  Stevenson  read  before  (the  State  Historical  Society  in  1908, 
and  a  few  of  the  letters  and  telegrams  from  prominent  persons 
to  whom  invitations  had  been  extended  but  who  were  unable 
to  attend  the  memorial  exercises,  are  published  in  this  volume 
and  offered  to  the  world  as  the  State's  tribute  to  the  memory 
of  one  of  its  most  distinguished  sons,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
centennial  of  the  anniversary  of  his  birth. 

That  the  tribute  was  worthily  bestowed  there  is  now  little 
or  no  difference  of  opinion.  During  his  life  time  Mr.  Douglas' 
motives  were  severely  attacked^  his  political  honesty  questioned 
and  his  principles  misunderstood.  His  political  life  coincided 
with  a  period  of  fierce  passion  and  conflict,  and  men  were  often 
incapable  of  jusitly  appreciating  the  motives  and  actions  of 
those  who  were  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  great  questions 
which  then  stirred  the  nation  and  shook  the  very  foundations 
of  the  Government.  But  with  the  lapse  of  years  and  the  dis- 
appearance of  passion  and  prejudice,  there  is  more  and  more 
of  a  disposition  to  attribute  sincerity  of  motive  and  purpose 
to  those  who  were  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  great  issues  upon 
which  the  conflicts  of  the  time  were  waged  and  to  render  more 
exact  justice  to  the  memory  of  those  who,  like  Douglas,  cham- 
pioned theories  which  the  majority  of  the  nation  did  not  ap- 
prove. This  tendency  finds  abundant  expression  in  the  more 
recent  biographies  of  Douglas — biographies  written  by  scholars 


13 

who  have  grown  up  since  the  era  of  conflict  and  who  conse- 
quently are  in  a  position  to  weigh  his  motives  and  to  judge  his 
acts  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  different  and  more  favorable 
environment. 

For  a  long  time  the  great  fame  of  Lincoln  and  the  triumph 
of  the  cause  which  he  represented  tended  to  obscure  the  great- 
ness of  his  chief  rival,  but  with  the  receding  years  there  have 
been  many  signs  of  a  dsire  to  accord  to  Douglas  a  place  of 
high  honor  among  the  great  characters  of  the  age  in  which 
he  was  one  of  the  mightiest  actors.  During  the  stirring  decade 
before  the  war  he  was  certainly  the  most  striking  and  forceful 
personality  in  our  national  public  life,  and  it  may  be  asserted 
without  fear  of  contradiction  that  in  the  exciting  drama  which 
preceded  the  conflict  of  1861-65  he  occupied  the  center  of  the 
stage,  and  this  place  he  held  until  the  conflict  ceased  to  be 
forensic  and  became  one  of  arms. 

Like  that  of  his  great  rival,  Douglas'  life  illustrated  the 
almost  boundless  possibilities  of  the  individual  in  our  American 
democracy.  If  he  did  not  rise  to  the  supreme  heights  attained 
by  Lincoln,  he  rose  very  high  and  very  quickly — more  rapidly 
indeed  than  any  other  man  in  our  public  life  and  had  he  not 
passed  from  the  scene  of  action  at  an  early  age  (he  died  in 
his  forty-ninth  year)  he  might  have  eventually  attained  the 
highest  eminence  that  remained.  Within  the  brief  space  of  ten 
years  after  his  arrival  on  the  prairies  of  Illinois  a  beardless 
youth,  penniless,  broken  in  health  and  without  friends,  he  had 
been  called  to  fill  the  positions  of  member  of  the  State  Legis- 
lature, prosecuting  attorney,  registrar  of  the  United  States 
land  office.  Secretary  of  State  of  Illinois,  judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  representative  in  Congress,  and  he  was  still  only 
thirty  years  of  age.  Among  all  the  examples  with  which 
American  history  is  so  replete,  of  the  remarkable  careers 
achieved  by  men  who  rose  from  the  humblest  walks  of  life, 
there  is  no  career  which  can  be  compared  with  this  one  in  the 
rapidity  with  which  it  was  achieved.  Lincoln  started  from  a 
lower  level  and  rose  higher,  but  his  ascent  was  slow  and  he 
had  the  advantage,  as  has  been  said,  of  a  rising  tide,  while 
Douglas'  barque  rode  on  an  ebbing  tide. 

On  the  other  hand,  Douglas  had  certain  advantages  over 
his  great  rival.  He  was  better  born  and  he  had  the  advantage 
of  some  education  in  the  schools.  He  had  a  good  ancestry  and 
the  gift  of  Yankee  shrewdness.  He  was  precocious,  self- 
confident,  and  audacious ;  he  had  the  happy  faculty  of  adapting 
himself  easily  to  his  environment  and  of  making  friends,  and 
especially  of  attaching  young  men  to  him ;  he  possessed  a  fund 
of  ready  wit,  "vvas  good  humored,  and  was  skillful  and  adroit 
in  debate.  Moreover,  he  was  an  excellent  political  organizer 
and  a  born  leader  of  men.  In  personality  he  was  a  striking 
figure ;  short,  compact  of  frame,  alert,  possessed  of  a  large  head, 


14 

long  flowing  hair,  and  massive  eye  brows,  he  looked  the  very 
embodiment  of  intellectual  force  and  combativeness,  and  such 
he  was.  He  was  courteous  to  his  opponents,  magnanimous 
to  his  adversaries,  and  lacked  resentment  toward  those  who 
had  injured  him,  or  if  he  show^ed  it,  it  usually  vanished  with 
the  spoken  word.  As  has  been  said  by  one  writer,  he  repented 
the  barbed  shaft  the  moment  it  quitted  the  bow. 

That  a  man  with  such  qualities  as  these  should  have  suc- 
ceeded in  politics  was  entirely  natural.  AVhen  he  arrived  in 
Illinois,  he  found  many  of  the  conditions  of  frontier  life  await- 
ing him.  The  country  was  sparsely  settled  but  prosperous. 
He  found  a  hospitable  people,  extremely  democratic,  and  ready 
to  receive  him  with  open  hearts. 

Douglas  believed  in  the  dignity  of  labor,  had  great  faith 
in  the  political  capacity  of  the  people,  and  was  an  indefatigable 
champion  of  the  principles  of  local  self  government.  He  was 
optimistic,  entertained  large  hopes  of  the  country's  future,  and 
when  he  entered  public  life,,  he  devoted  especial  attention  to  the 
promotion  of  measures  for  the  development  of  the  resources 
of  his  State.  He  advocated  the  completion  of  the  Illinois  and 
Michigan  Canal,  urged  the  construction  of  two  railroads  across 
the  State  from  north  to  south  and  from  east  to  west,  and  was 
instrumental  in  securing  a  land  grant  for  the  Illinois  Central 
Railroad.  He  began  his  political  career  by  espousing  the  cause 
of  General  Jackson  in  his  local  community,  and  later,  in  Con- 
gress, he  was  instrumental  in  bringing  about  the  passage  of  a 
resolution  to  reimburse  the  old  hero  for  the  fine  of  $1,000  which 
had  been  imposed  upon  him  by  a  Federal  judge  at  New 
Orleans  in  1814.  In  the  early  stages  of  his  political  career, 
it  was  his  fortune  to  be  the  champion  of  policies  and  measures 
which  were  immensely  popular  throughout  the  country.  It 
was  only  on  the  slavery  question  that  his  motives  and  his  record 
were  attacked.  In  Congress  he  voted  against  the  Wilmot 
Proviso,  although  he  supported  a  bill  to  organize  the  territory 
of  Oregon  without  slavery.  When  men  of  the  North  and  the 
South  were  groping  in  the  darkness  for  a  solution  of  the  slavery 
controversy,  Douglas  put  forward  a  plan  which  he  believed 
would  prove  not  only  a  fair  and  just  settlement  of  the  question, 
but  one  which  was  most  in  accord  with  American  ideas  of 
local  self  government,  namely,  that  the  people  of  each  territory 
seeking  to  become  a  state  should  be  allowed  to  determine  for 
themselves  whether  slavery  should  exist  in  their  community  or 
not.  With  his  unbounded  faith  in  the  virtue  and  capacity  of 
the  people  to  manage  their  own  local  concerns  and  his  undying 
belief  in  their  inalienable  right  to  be  allowed  to  determine 
their  own  institutions,  it  was  not  unnatural  that  this  solution 
of  the  slavery  question  in  the  territories  should  have  appeared 
to  him  to  be  absolutely  just  and  at  the  same  time  in  harmony 
with  one  of  the  most  fundamental    principles    of    American 


15 

government.  There  is  no  good  reason  for  believing  that  he 
vras  insincere  or  that  he  desired  to  see  the  extension  of  slavery 
to  parts  of  the  country  whore  it  did  not  already  exist.  Never- 
theless, his  motives  were  severely  attacked  and  he  was  charged 
with  being  indifferent  to  the  moral  aspects  of  slavery.  Slavery, 
it  was  said,  was  a  national  evil,  not  a  local  affaii",  and  its 
existence  conld  not  be  safely  left  to  the  determination  of  the 
voters  of  a  particular  communuity. 

Whether  Douglas'  proposed  solution  was  wise  or  unwdse, 
his  subsequent  record  on  the  slavery  question  disproved  the 
charge  that  he  had  sold  himself  to  the  slave  powder  in  the  hope 
of  securing  the  nomination  to  the  presidency.  When  an  at- 
tempt was  made  by  the  administration  and  by  Congress  to 
force  upon  the  people  of  Kansas  against  the  will  of  the  major- 
ity the  Lecompton  constitution,  he  threw  the  weight  of  his 
poW'Crful  influence  against  the  scheme  and  in  a  three  hour 
speech  in  the  senate  he  denounced  it  as  "a  trick  and  a  fraud 
against  the  rights  of  the  people".  He  demonstrated  beyond 
all  doubt  that  he  had  a  strong  sense  of  justice  and  of  fair  play 
and  that  he  possessed  high  moral  courage.  He  declared  that 
Congress  had  no  right  to  force  upon  the  people  of  Kansas  a 
constitution  to  which  the  majority  of  them  were  opposed.  He 
w^as  entirely  consistent  and  his  opposition  was  absolutely  in 
accord  with  the  principle  of  local  popular  sovereignty  which 
he  had  so  powerfully  advocated,  both  in  and  out  of  Congress. 
On  this  point  he  declared : 

"But  if  this  constitution  is  to  be  forced  down  our  throats, 
in  violation  of  the  fundamental  principle  of  free  government, 
under  a  mode  of  submission  that  is  a  mockery  and  insult,  I 
will  resist  it  to  the  last.  I  have  no  fear  of  any  party  associa- 
tions being  severed.  I  should  regret  any  social  or  political 
estrangement,  even  temporarily;  but  if  it  must  be,  if  I  cannot 
act  with  you  and  preserve  my  faith  and  honor,  I  will  stand 
on  the  great  principle  of  popular  sovereignty,  which  declares 
the  right  of  all  people  to  be  left  perfectly  free  to  form  and 
regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way.  I  will 
follow  thait  principle  wherever  its  logical  consequences  may 
take  me,  and  I  will  endeavor  to  defend  it  against  assault  from 
any  and  all  quarters.  No  mortal  man  shall  be  responsible  for 
my  action  but  myself.  By  my  action  I  w^ill  compromit  no 
man." 

The  administration  brought  every  possible  pressure  to  bear 
upon  him  to  overcome  his  opposition  and  even  threatened  to 
employ  its  influence  to  destroy  him  politically.  Replying  in  the 
Senate  to  this  threat,  he  said: 

"But  we  are  told  it  is  an  administration  measure.  Because 
it  is  an  administration  measure,  does  it  therefore  follow  that  it 
is  a  party  measure?  *  *  *  I  do  not  recognize  the  right  of 
the  President  or  his  Cabinet     *     *     *     to  tell  me  my  duty  in 


16 

the  Senate  Chamber.  Am  I  to  be  told  that  I  must  obey  the 
executive  and  betray  my  State,  or  else  be  branded  as  a  traitor 
to  the  party,  and  be  hunted  down  by  the  newspapers  that  share 
the  patronage  of  the  Government,  and  every  men  who  holds  a 
petty  ofl5ce  in  any  part  of  my  State  to  have  the  question  put 
to  him,  'Are  you  Douglas'  enemy?  If  not,  your  head  comes  off'. 
I  intend  to  perform  my  duty  in  accordance  with  my  own  con- 
victions. Neither  the  frowms  of  power  nor  the  influence  of 
patronage  will  change  my  action,  or  drive  me  from  my  princi- 
ples. I  stand  firmly,  immovably,  upon  those  great  principles  of 
self-government  and  state  sovereignty  upon  which  the  cam- 
paign was  fought  and  the  election  won.  *  *  *  if^  standing 
firmly  by  my  principles,  I  shall  be  driven  into  private  life,  it  is 
a  fate  that  has  no  terrors  for  me.  I  prefer  private  life,  pre- 
serving my  own  self-respect  and  manhood,  to  abject  and  servile 
submission  to  executive  will.  If  the  alternative  be  private  life 
or  servile  obedience  to  executive  will,  I  am  prepared  to  retire. 
Official  position  has  no  charms  for  me  when  deprived  of  that 
freedom  of  thought  and  action  which  becomes  a  gentleman 
and  a  senator." 

Douglas'  opposition  to  the  Lecompton  scheme  cost  him  the 
support  of  the  slave-holding  South  and  prevented  him  from 
receiving  the  presidential  nomination  from  a  united  party,  but 
it  greatly  increased  the  respect  and  confidence  in  which  he 
was  held  throughout  the  North,  Henceforth,  no  one  could 
deny  that  he  was  a  man  of  moral  courage,  and  that  he  was  ready 
to  sacrifice  personal  ambition  for  the  cause  of  justice  and  fair 
play. 

His  patriotism  and  loyalty  to  the  Union  were  soon  after- 
wards established  beyond  all  question.  During  the  presi- 
dential campaign  of  1860  he  declared  emphatically  that  the 
election  of  Lincoln  would  not  justify  any  attempt  to  "dissolve 
this  glorious  confederacy",  and  he  added  that  in  case  such 
an  attempt  were  made,  he  would  do  all  in  his  power  to  aid 
those  in  authority  to  maintain  the  supremacy  of  the  laws 
against  all  resistance  regardless  of  whatever  quarter  it  might 
come  from.  Again  and  again  he  declared  his  love  for  the 
Union  and  asserted  that  there  was  no  earthly  sacrifice  which 
he  was  not  willing  to  make  for  its  preservation. 

Finally,  when  the  returns  showed  that  Lincoln  had  tri- 
umphed, he  besought  his  countrymen,  regardless  of  party  or 
section,  to  unite  with  him  and  with  all  Union  loving  men  in  a 
common  effort  to  save  the  country  from  the  disaster  which 
threatened  it.  On  the  occasion  of  the  inauguration  he  made 
his  way  to  the  place  where  Mr.  Lincoln  stood  and  held  the  hat 
of  his  great  rival  while  he  delivered  the  address  which  Douglas, 
himself,  might  have  been  called  to  pronounce  had  he  pursued  a 
different  though  less  honorable  course.  His  call  upon  the 
President  shortly  after  his  inauguration  and  his  promise  to 


17 

support  the  Government  in  its  efforts  to  enforce  the  laws  and 
maintain  the  Union,  served  to  cheer  and  encourage  millions  of 
loyal  men  throughout  the  North.  In  a  speech  before  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  Illinois  on  April  25,  1861,  a  few  weeks  before 
his  death,  he  said :  "My  friends,  I  can  say  no  more.  To  discuss 
these  topics  is  the  most  painful  duty  of  my  life.  It  is  with  a 
sad  heart — with  a  grief  I  have  never  before  experienced — that 
I  have  to  contemplate  this  fearful  struggle;  but  I  believe  in 
my  conscience  that  it  is  a  duty  we  owe  to  ourselves  and  to 
our  children,  and  to  our  God,  to  protect  this  Government  and 
that  flag  from  every  assailant,  be  he  who  he  may." 

In  his  last  public  utterance,  made  at  Chicago  May  1.  he 
declared  that  there  were  ' '  but  two  sides  to  the  question :  Every 
man  must  be  for  the  United  States  or  against  it.  There  can  be 
no  neutrals  in  this  war;  only  patriots — or  traitors". 

Whatever  doubt  had  formerly  existed  in  certain  minds 
regarding  his  patriotism  and  his  devotion  to  the  Union  which 
he  had  served  so  long,  was  now  removed ;  and  when  he  passed 
aM'ay  shortly  afterwards,  men  of  all  parties  and  all  beliefs 
united  in  paying  tribute  to  his  memory.  Those  who  had  once 
villified  and  denounced,  those  who  had  expressed  want  of 
confidence  in  his  integrity  as  a  public  servant,  those  who  had 
regarded  him  as  a  time  serving  politician  without  principle, 
now  realized  that  they  had  misunderstood  and  misjudged. 
The  lapse  of  years  has  tended  to  remove  still  further  the  mis- 
understanding, the  prejudice  and  the  passion  amid  which  he 
Avas  once  judged,  and  to  create  an  atmosphere  within  which 
it  is  possible  to  form  a  juster  estimate  of  his  character  as  a 
man  and  a  public  servant.  His  memory  is  entirely  deserving 
of  the  commemoration  which  the  Legislature  of  the  common- 
wealth that  honored  him,  and  that  he  honored  in  turn,  saw 
fit  to  give  him  on  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  his  birth. 
The  tributes  bestowed  upon  him  by  those  who  kncAV  him  and 
who  admired  him  have  been  collected  and  published  in  this 
volume  in  the  hope  that  they  will  furnish  some  inspiration  to 
those  who  may  in  the  future  be  called  to  leadership  in  this 
commonwealth  and  who,  if  the  times  be  such  as  to  require  the 
loftiest  patriotism,  the  highest  moral  courage  and  supreme  self- 
sacrifice,  may  derive  strength  from  the  lessons  which  such  a 
life  left  behind. 

James  W.  Garner. 

Urbana,  Illinois. 


Birthplace  of  Douglas,  Brandon,  Vermont 


19 

The  Commemoration  Exercises 

At  2  :30  o'clock  p.  m.  the  Senate,  preceded  by  its  President, 
proceeded  to  the  House  of  Representatives  to  hold  a  joint 
session,  as  provided  for  by  the  following  resolution  adopted 
by  both  houses: 

"Whereas,  April  23,  1913,  is  the  one  hundredth  anniver- 
sary of  the  birth  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  was  one  of  Illinois' 
most  foremost  sons  of  his  lime  and  generation;  and, 

"Whereas,  It  is  fitting  and  proper  that  the  General  Assem- 
bly of  the  State  of  Illinois,  a  State  which  he  so  ably  represented 
in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  and  a  State  which  he  also 
served  so  well  as  a  member  of  its  Supreme  Court,  should  pause 
in  its  deliberations  long  enough  to  pay  tribute  to  the  memory 
of  this  man,  one  w^ho  did  so  much  at  the  opening  of  the  Civil 
War  to  uphold  the  hands  of  the  then  President,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  whose  opponent  he  was  for  that  office  and  whose  politi- 
cal competitor  he  had  been  for  years  in  the  political  arena  of 
Illinois  and  the  nation;  therefore,  be  it 

"Resolved,  hy  the  Senate,  the  House  of  Representatives 
concurring  therein,  That  a  committee  of  five  be  appointed  from 
each  house  ,who  shall  make  all  the  necessary  arrangements  for 
the  holding  of  a  joint  session  of  the  General  Assembly  on 
April  23,  at  2:00  o'clock  p.  m.,  in  the  hall  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  for  the  purpose  of  listening  to  such  appro- 
priate addresses  as  the  committee  hereby  authorized  shall 
arrange  for." 

The  Senate  having  been  admitted  to  the  House,  and  the 
joint  session  was  convened  with  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  as  presiding  officer.  He  called  Governor 
E.  F.  Dunne  to  the  chair  to  act  as  temporary  presiding  officer, 
when  the  following  proceedings  were  had: 

Speaker  McKinley 
Governor  Dunne,  Senators  Lewis  and  Sherman,  Members  of  the 
General  Assembly,  and  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 
It  indeed  gives  me  very  great  pleasure,  this  afternoon,  to 
turn  the  gavel  over  to  our  distinguished  Governor,  to  conduct 
the  exercises  of  this  day  in  commemoration  of  the  one  hun- 
dredth anniversary  of  the  birth  of  an  illustrious  son  of  Illinois, 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.    (Applause.) 

Governor  Dunne 

Gentlemen  of  the  Senate,  Senators  Lewis  and  Sherman,  Members 
of  the  General  Assembly,  and  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 
I  have  been  honored  by  the  Committee  on  Arrangements, 

representing  the  joint  assembly,  in  being  asked  to  preside  over 

this  memorable  meeting. 


Governor  Edward  F.Dunne 


21 

One  hundred  years  ago,  in  a  little  village  in  Vermont,  there 
was  born  a  man  who,  when  he  arrived  at  the  years  of  manhood, 
made  his  home  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  who,  from  the  time 
when  he  came  to  this  State  until  the  time  of  his  untimely  death 
in  1861,  was  one  of  the  great  intellectual  leaders,  not  only  of 
the  State  of  Illinois,  but  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

In  the  political  struggles  which  attracted  the  attention  not 
only  of  this  State,  but  of  the  whole  United  States,  he  became 
one  of  the  great  moving  figures,  and  in  his  intellectual  combats 
with  another  great  lllinoisian,  Abraham  Lincoln,  he  riveted  the 
attention  of  the  whole  of  the  United  States  upon  the  issues  of 
his  day. 

These  two  great  sons  of  Illinois  became  so  prominent  in  the 
political  life  of  the  United  States  that  they  were  both  nominated 
for  the  highest  executive  office  in  the  gift  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  and  after  a  most  memorable  struggle, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  his  competitor,  was  elected  President  of  the 
United  States. 

At  this  juncture  this  nation  was  faced  with  a  situation  full 
of  peril,  if  not  complete  extinction,  and  upon  that  great  oc- 
casion the  man  whose  name  we  now  meet  to  commemorate, 
proved  himself  a  patriot  among  patriots,  and  next  to  Abraham 
Lincoln,  himself,  did  more  for  the  preservation  of  the  integrity 
of  the  United  States  than  any  other  man  within  its  confines. 
(Applause.) 

You  are  exceptionally  fortunate,  my  friends,  in  being  ten- 
dered an  intellectual  treat  this  afternoon ;  and  in  view^  of  the 
fact  that  there  are  so  many  eminent,  and  so  many  eloquent 
speakers  here  today,  I  shall  confine  myself,  from  this  time  on, 
to  the  pleasant  duty  of  introducing  to  this  audience  these 
distinguished  gentlemen. 

Before  introducing  any  of  the  speakers,  it  is  my  pleasure 
to  introduce  the  Reverend  Euclid  B.  Rogers,  who  will  deliver 
the  invocation.     The  audience  will  please  rise. 

Invocation — Dr.  Euclid  B.  Rogers 

Almighty  God,,  our  Heavenly  Father !  We  bow  in  adora- 
tion before  Thee !  Thou  art  our  Maker  and  our  God.  "We  thank 
Thee  for  all  that  Thou  hast  been  unto  us,  for  all  that  Thou 
art  unto  us  at  this  hour. 

AVe  thank  Thee  for  our  country's  past,  not  long  but  big. 
We  thank  Thee  for  the  names  that  shine  like  stars  up  in  our 
Illinois  sky.  We  thank  Thee  for  him,  in  whose  memory  we 
are  met.  Great  as  a  public  school  teacher,  great  as  a  lawyer, 
great  as  a  jurist,  great  as  a  legislator,  great  as  a  statesman, 
great  as  an  orator,  great  as  a  man,  great  in  victory  and  greater 
still  in  defeat. 


Dr.  Euclid  B.  Rogers 


23 

We  thank  Thee  for  that  epoch-making  deliverance  of  April 
25,  1861,  when  his  voice  rang  like  a  bell  in  the  air  of  the  world, 
calling  men  north,  south,,  east,  west,  everywhere,  to  rally  'round 
the  flag. 

Fallible  he  was,  human,  strikingly,  emphatically,  splendidly 
human.     To  be  that  is  to  be  almost  Divine. 

We  thank  Thee  for  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  for  what  he  was 
and  what  he  did. 

And  now  we  crave  the  presence,  the  felt  presence  with 
us,  of  the  Highest,  and  His  blessing  upon  us.  0,  Lord,  bless 
the  Governor  of  this  State  and  all  his  coadjutors. 

The  Lord  bless  these  law-making  bodies,  and  these  inter- 
preters of  the  law.  The  Lord  bless  these  distinguished  gentle- 
men who  are  to  speak  to  us,  and  the  singers  who  are  to  sing. 

Grant  that  all  that  shall  be  said  and  done  here  today  may 
have  a  tendency  to  help  each  of  us  to  do  his  work  devotedly  and 
well.  To  carry  freedom  beyond  the  mere  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, to  carry  liberty  beyond  the  mere  machinery  of  gov- 
ernment, to  cany  the  rights  of  man,  the  rights  of  women,  the 
rights  of  every  little  child,  into  mine  and  mill,  and  home  and 
shop,  anywhere,  everyAvhere,  where  folks  hope  and  dream  and 
pray  and  suffer  and  die ;  that  is  the  task  of  this  era — a  task 
worthy  the  mettle  of  a  race  of  immortals,  and  we  pray  that  out 
of  this  hour  there  shall  come  an  influence  and  inspiration,  into 
each  heart  of  us,  tliat  shall  stimulate  us  to  do  our  bravest  and 
our  best,  from  this  time  on,  for  the  common  weal. 

Amen! 

Governor  Dunne  : — We  will  be  favored  with  music  by  the 
Apollo  Quartette. 

Music— "My  country,  'tis  of  Thee." 

Governor  Dunne  : — The  genius  of  Douglas  was  of  that  char- 
acter that  it  could  not  be  distinguished  in  the  life  of  any  one 
man.  His  eloquent  son,  Stephen  A.,  Jr.,  made  his  impress  in 
his  lifetime  upon  the  people  of  this  State. 

The  next  address  will  be  delivered  by  a  grandson  of  the 
great  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  the  Honorable  Robert  D.  Douglas, 
the  eldest  son  of  his  eldest  son,  and  the  former  Attorney  Gen- 
eral of  the  state  of  North  Carolina.     (Applause.) 

Hon.  Robert  Dick  Douglas 

Governor  Dunne,  and  My  Friends  of  Illinois: 

Although  a  stranger  to  most  of  you,  I  feel  that  I  can  call 
you  my  friends.  Please  allow  me,  in  behalf  of  his  family, 
to  express  to  you  their  appreciation  of  your  tender  kindness  in 
turning  aside  from  the  busy  life  of  today  to  do  honor  to  the 
memory  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  a  century  after  his  birth  and 
more  than  half  a  century  after  his  death.      Allow  me  also  to 


Robert  Dick  Douglas 


25 

thank  you  for  inviting  my  father  and  myself  to  be  present 
on  this  occasion  and  to  tell  you  of  my  father's  sincere  regret 
that  ill  health  has  compelled  his  absence. 

Though  bearing  his  name  and  blood,  fate  has  cast  my  lot 
in  a  state  far  distant  from  this,  your  State,  in  which  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  lived  and  labored  and  which  he  so  devotedly  loved. 
And  this  fact,  coupled  with  the  further  fact  that  he  died  when 
my  father  was  l)ut  twelve  years  of  age,  renders  it  difficult  for 
me  to  attempt  to  tell  anything  new  about  him  to  this  audience, 
some  of  whom  possibly  knew  him  personally,  and  many  of 
whom  know  more  people  who  knew  him,  than  I  do. 

But  while  positively  I  can  tell  you  little  about  him  that  you 
do  not  already  know,  negatively  I  can  tell  you  that  there  is 
little  to  tell.  The  fact  that  he  began  his  public  life  at  such 
an  unusually  early  age  and  continued  in  the  public  service 
almost  uninterruptedly  to  the  time  of  his  death,,  and  that  aside 
from  his  immediate  home  ties  he  had  few  interests  outside  his 
public  duties,  renders  it  true  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  that  there 
is  less  difference  between  his  public  life  as  the  public  knew 
him  and  his  private  life  as  known  to  his  family,  and  intimate 
friends,  than  of  perhaps  any  other  man  prominently  before 
the  public. 

He  never  accumulated  wealth.  If  he  ever  had  what  might 
be  called  a  "hobby",  I  never  heard  of  it,  and,  so  far  as  I 
know,  his  sole  recreation  consisted  of  extensive  reading,  es- 
pecially works  of  a  historical  or  political  nature,  and  discussions 
with  his  friends  upon  political  matters. 

In  a  way  he  was,  and  in  a  way  he  was  not,  what  would 
be  called  a  w^ell  educated  man.  His  father's  early  death  pre- 
vented his  receiving  the  college  training  he  so  much  desired, 
and  during  his  later  life  he  had  little  time  for  reading  of  a 
lighter  sort.  But,  regarding  matters  bearing  directly  upon 
the  things  in  which  he  was  most  interested  he  was  a  thorough 
and  indefatigable  student.  He  was  widely  conversant  with 
general  history,  especially  with"  regard  to  its  bearing  upon 
political  development ;  while  few  men  equalled  him  in  his  in- 
timate knowledge  of  the  political  and  legislative  history  of 
his  own  country  from  its  foundation  to  his  own  time  and  with 
what  the  great  men  of  the  country  had  said  or  written  on 
fundamental  principles  or  measures  of  a  general  and  construc- 
tive nature.  He  was  noted  for  his  power  and  dexterity  in 
extemporaneous  debate,  but  it  was  only  the  form  of  the  speech 
which  was  extemporaneous.  The  substance  came  from  the 
accumulated  knowledge  acquired  by  months  and  sometimes 
years  of  study.     (Applause.) 

Much  of  his  fame  rests  upon  his  reputation  as  an  orator, 
but  personally,  I  like  to  think  of  him,  not  so  much  as  an  orator, 
swaying  the  crowds  with  his  eloquence,  as  to  think  of  him  as 
the  builder,  the  chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Terri- 


26 

tories;  the  legislator,  the  constructive  statesman,  looking  with 
prophetic  vision  at  the  future  possibilities  of  the  great  and 
unknown  west ;  carving  territories  out  of  its  wilderness,  build- 
ing states  out  of  its  territories,  promoting  transcontinental  rail- 
ways, the  Illinois  Central,  and  encouraging  local  development; 
laying  the  foundations  of  a  greater  nation,  and  at  the  same 
time  ever  planning,  working,  striving  to  save  it  from  disruption 
while  it  grew  in  population,  wealth  and  power. 

In  mentality  he  was  remarkably  versatile,  and  would  have 
made  his  mark  in  any  occupation  which  he  had  made  his  life's 
work ;  but  like  all  men  whose  life  is  made  worth  living,  he  had 
one  dominant  idea  that  colored  all  his  thoughts  and  shaped  all 
his  actions.  This  idea  was  the  preservation  of  the  Union. 
It  was  to  him  more  than  the  feeling  of  patriotism,  it  possessed 
the  qualities  of  a  personal  love.  His  advent  into  public  life 
was  contemporaneous  with  the  first  serious  mutterings  of 
sectional  discord ;  and  thereafter,  throughout  his  life,  his  dom- 
inant thought  and  desire  was  to  bring  agreement  out  of  discord 
and  peace  out  of  impending  strife,  to  the  end  that  the  Union 
might  be  preserved — the  Union,  whose  constitution  was  to  him 
as  the  tables  of  stone  to  the  Israelites  in  the  desert,  whose  flag 
was  to  him  as  the  banner  of  the  cross  to  the  crusaders  of  old. 
(Applause.)  This  was  the  desire  of  his  life,  to  preserve  the 
Union  and  at  the  same  time  to  develop  its  immense  resources, 
to  further  the  welfare  of  its  people,  to  extend  its  domain  when- 
ever honorably  possible ;  and  with  it  all  to  insure  national  con- 
cord throughout  its  vast  and  varying  territory  by  giving  to 
eveiy  section  of  the  country  the  fullest  measure  of  local  self- 
government  compatible  with  the  national  strength  and  welfare. 
(Applause.) 

Of  his  country  and  his  country's  future,  he  dreamed  great 
dreams,  but  he  did  not  allow  those  dreams  to  become  his  master. 
Both  his  mental  trend  and  his  concrete  acts  looked  to  practical 
results  rather  than  to  fine-spun  theories. 

It  is  said  of  Solon  of  old,  that  when  asked  if  his  code  of 
laws  was  the  best  he  was  capable  of  formulating,  he  answered 
that  it  was  not,  but  that  it  was  the  best  he  could  get  the  Athen- 
ians to  accept.  The  same  reasoning  might  be  applied  to  many 
of  the  public  measures  associated  with  the  name  of  Stephen  A. 
Douglas.  They  may  not  entirely  have  represented  his  views, 
or  been  exactly  as  he  would  have  wished  them  to  be,  but  they 
were  the  best  he  could  get  others  to  accept,  and  as  such  he 
accepted  them  himself,  preferring  the  practical  benefits  of  an 
adopted  law,  approximating  what  he  thought  the  law  should 
be,  to  the  theoretical  perfection  of  a  measure  which  the  oppo- 
sition of  others  or  the  force  of  circumstances  made  it  impossible 
for  him  to  write  into  the  statute  books  of  the  nation.  (Ap- 
plause.) 


27 

His  last  days  were  his  darkest  because  they  were  the  dark- 
est for  his  beloved  country ;  but  those  days  gave  him  an  oppor- 
tunity of  appearing  in  a  new  light  to  many  of  his  countrymen 
who  had  theretofore  viewed  him  from  the  standpoint  of  par- 
tisan opposition.  The  gallant  political  army  he  had  so  long 
and  so  brilliantly  led  to  victory,  had  at  last  been  defeated  and 
the  national  government  put  into  the  hands  of  his  political 
opponents;  but  when  the  echo  of  the  guns  at  Sumter  told 
the  country  that  at  last  civil  war  was  a  dreadful  reality,  he  did 
not  hesitate,  but  promptly  offered  his  services  to  the  Govern- 
ment in  any  capacity  in  which  he  could  best  be  used  for  the 
preservation  of  the  Union,  and  immediately  began  his  efforts 
to  hold  loyal  the  great  middle  west. 

Here  in  your  city  of  Springfield  was  made  one  of  his  last 
speeches  in  which  he  pleaded,  and  pleaded  not  in  vain,  that  all 
should  forget  past  differences  and  rally  to  the  support  of  the 
Union.  How  great  was  his  love  for  the  Union,  how  intimately 
it  was  interwoven  even  with  his  personal  affection,  are  shown 
by  the  thoughts  that  filled  his  mind  in  his  dying  moments. 

In  June,  1861,  he  lay  upon  his  bed  in  Chicago,  knowing 
that  his  end  had  come.  He  was  asked  if  he  had  any  message 
to  send  to  his  two  young  sons,  then  in  the  city  of  Washington. 
"Yes",  said  the  dying  man.  And  what  was  that  message? 
"Tell  them  to  obey  the  laws  and  support  the  constitution  of 
the  United  States".  (Applause.)  But  the  man  himself  had 
not  changed.  His  ideals  and  aspirations  were  the  same  that 
they  had  always  been.  His  love  for  the  Union  was  no  stronger 
in  1861  than  it  had  been  throughout  all  the  years  during  which 
he  had  been  striving  to  preserve  it.  It  was  simply  that  his 
former  opponents  were  seeing  the  same  man  in  a  new  light. 

I  proudly  think  that  Stephen  A.  Douglas  would  have  been 
a  man  among  men  in  any  country  or  amidst  any  surroundings ; 
but  I  do  not  forget  that  you,  the  people  of  the  great  State  of 
Illinois,  welcomed  the  unknown  boy  to  your  midst ;  believed 
in  him,  trusted  him,  loved  him,  and  so,  wherever  their  home 
or  whatever  their  fortunes  or  their  destinies  may  be,  so  long 
as  his  name  and  blood  shall  last,  they  will  love  you  for  it. 
(Applause.) 

Whether  you,  looking  backward  in  the  light  of  subsequent 
events,  agree  or  disagree  with  the  ultimate  wisdom  of  each 
particular  measure  which  he,  looking  into  the  unknown  future, 
originated,  or  to  which  he  gave  his  aid,  is  a  matter  of  little 
moment.  But  as  one  who  through  filial  affection  reveres  his 
memory,  as  one  who  through  the  accident  of  birth  represents 
him  here  today,  I  would,  if  I  thought  the  occasion  fitting,  make 
one  request  of  you — that  you  give  him  credit  for  unselfish 
sincerity  and  unfaltering  courage.     (Applause.) 


Honorable  James  A.  Reed 


29 

Before  a  hostile  audience  I  would  make  this  request,  and 
only  this;  but  standing  here  in  your  capitol  at  Springfield,  be- 
fore you,  the  people  of  Illinois,  knowing  what  you  have  done 
in  the  past,  seeing  and  hearing  what  you  are  doing  today,  I 
feel  that  such  a  request  coming  from  me  would  by  implication 
be  more  than  unjust,  it  would  be  most  ingracious. 

More  than  half  a  century  has  passed  since  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  ended  his  short  and  storm-tossed  life  and  laid  his  head 
for  his  last  long  sleep  on  the  bosom  of  his  adopted  mother. 
Cities  have  arisen  where  he  knew  only  prairies ;  a  new  genera- 
tion has  come  to  take  the  places  of  his  friends  and  associates ; 
almost  all  has  changed;  but  Illinois  is  fast  making  real  his 
fondest  dreams  of  her  future  greatness,  and  the  nation  that  he 
loved  has  escaped  the  fate  he  feared  and  set  in  the  political 
heavens  a  rainbow  of  perpetual  Union. 

My  only  regret  is  that  he  could  not  have  lived  to  see  the 
civic  tempest,  which  beclouded  his  dying  hours,  give  place  to 
the  sunshine  of  today. 

I  thank  you.     (Applause.) 

Governor  Dunne: — In  the  galaxy  of  orators  that  we  have 
with  us  today,  we  are  fortunate  not  only  in  having  the  two 
distinguished  and  brilliant  Senators  who  represent  lis  from  this 
State  in  the  United  States  Senate,  but  a  Senator  from  an  ad- 
joining state,  one  of  the  most  gifted  orators  and  able  statesmen 
in  the  United  States  Senate,  United  States  Senator  James  A. 
Reed  of  Missouri.     (Applause.) 

Honorable  James  A.  Reed 

Mr.   President,    Gentlemen   of   the   Illinois   General   Assenibly, 

Ladies  -a  nd  Ge  ntleme  n  : 

I  am  never  favored  with  a  flattering  introduction,  which 
comes  by  the  way  frequently,  not  to  me  alone,  but  to  every  man 
who  occasionally  makes  a  speech,  not  because  it  is  the  solemn 
truth,  but  because  the  chairman  of  the  meeting  wants  to  be 
hospitable  and  kind  and  flattering.  (Laughter.)  I  never  hear 
that  sort  of  introduction  and  of  the  hopes  and  expectations  it 
may  arouse  in  the  minds  of  auditors,  but  I  recall  the  somewhat 
threadbare  anecdote  told  by  my  fellow  citizen,  or  former  fellow 
citizen,  the  late  lamented  Mark  Twain.  He  said  that  in  his 
youth  he  had  heard  about  Niagara  Falls.  He  had  read  wonder- 
ful descriptions  of  that  marvelous  cataract.  He  had  looked  at 
the  pictures  of  it  in  the  old  school  atlas  until  there  had  been 
formed  in  his  mentality  a  vision  of  all  the  pent  up  waters  of  the 
seas  of  all  the  world,  leaping  over  the  sharp  edge  of  a  declivity 
into  a  bottomless  abyss  with  the  roar  and  crash  of  contending 
worlds.  That  at  last  he  scraped  enough  money  together  to  go 
and  feast  his  eyes  upon  this  natural  marvel  and  when  he  got 
there  the  hack  fares  were  so  much  higher  than  the  falls  that 


30 

the  falls  appeared  inconsequent.  (Laughter.)  He  added  that 
he  did  not  dam  the  falls,  but  he  did  the  hackmen.  (Laughter.) 
So  if  expectation  were  to  plume  its  flight  according  to  these 
kindly  introductions,  I  had  better  plead  illness  now  and  let  you 
believe  what  has  been  told  you,  not  stand  here  to  make  profert 
of  myself,  at  once  to  destroy  my  reputation  as  a  speaker,  and 
your  Governor's  reputation  for  truth  and  veracity.  (Laughter 
and  applause.) 

My  time  to  speak  is  limited  because  I  must  catch  a  train. 
I  congratulate  the  audience  upon  that  fact.  My  chance  to  make 
a  speech  that  would  really  be  a  gem  is  denied  me  by  that  fact, 
because  I  really  do  not  reach  my  highest  altitudes  until  about 
the  third  hour.  (Laughter.)  Besides  all  of  that,  I  am  to  be 
followed  by  your  distinguished  United  States  Senators,  one  of 
whom  I  have  been  told  carries  with  him  in  his  ample  brain 
all  of  the  skill  and  acumen  of  the  statesman,  as  well  as  the 
wisdom  of  the  Republican  party.  (Laughter.)  The  other  I 
know  well,  as  indeed  does  the  entire  country.  We  have  made 
exhibition  of  him  in  "Washington.  We  have  convinced  the  effete 
and  polished  east  that  the  statement  that  his  whiskers  are  pink 
is  an  infamous  slander.  (Laughter.)  We  have  also  exhibited 
him  as  the  glass  of  fashion,  but  I  make  the  prediction  that  he 
will  not  have  been  there  long  until  they  vrill  find  that  the  glass 
will  scintillate  with  intellectual  and  poetical  gems  that  will 
dazzle  the  eyes  of  some  of  the  gentlemen  who  have  hitherto 
regarded  themselves  as  leaders  in  the  forum.     (Applause.) 

As  I  have  been  looking  over  this  audience  of  Illinois 
people,  I  have  been  impressed  with  the  fact  that  all  of  this 
country  is  pretty  much  alike.  I  observe  that  here  in  Illinois, 
as  in  my  ovni  state  of  Missouri,  the  home  of  the  rose  in  its 
ripest  and  most  perfect  blush  is  in  the  fair  cheeks  of  your  lovely 
women,  and  I  have  observed  that  your  men  are  about  as  homely 
a  looking  crowd  as  even  in  the  "hound-dawg"  state.  (Laugh- 
ter.) That  reminds  me  that  I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  of 
thanking  the  Democrats  of  Illinois  for  having  given  their  loyal 
support  to  Missouri's  great  son  in  the  recent  primary  contest. 

In  what  I  have  said  there  is  a  thought  or  suggestion  of  a 
thought  to  myself,  for  not  only  do  the  people  of  Illinois  and 
the  people  of  Missouri  resemble  each  other  so  much  that  we 
could  not  tell  the  difference  in  the  audience,  but  here  stands 
before  us  the  grandson  of  the  great  citizen  of  Vermont  and 
afterwards  the  adopted  child  of  this  commonwealth  who  now 
makes  his  home  in  a  far  southern  state,  and  it  has  changed  him 
so  little  that  as  we  gaze  upon  him  we  see  once  more  standing 
before  us  the  figure  of  the  "Little  Giant  of  Illinois".  (Ap- 
plause.) And  so  as  we  go  from  one  part  of  this  republic  to 
another,  we  find,  at  last,  that  we  are  bone  of  one  bone,  and  flesh 
of  one  flesh ;  that  there  is  no  north,  no  south,  no  east,  and  no 
west;  that  this  is  one  people,  one  language,  one  country,  one 


31 

flag,  one  destiny,  and  one  God  for  us  all,  (applause),  and  that 
wherever  you  scratch  the  white  skin  of  the  American  citizen, 
the  same  rich  red  blood  of  manhood  answers  to  the  touch.  And 
when  men  begin  to  despair  of  their  country,  and  see  the  horizon 
covered  with  clouds,  and  the  future  overshadowed  with  fear,  I 
ask  them  all  to  stand  in  front  of  such  an  audience  as  this,  to 
look  into  the  earnest  faces  where  thought  has  plowed  its  fur- 
rows, into  the  fearless  flashing  eyes  that  know  nothing  but  the 
sense  of  duty  and  the  determination  to  conquer,  and  to  answer 
then  the  questions  of  apprehension.  This  is  a  race  that  has 
conquered  the  wilderness,  plowed  the  prairies,  dotted  the 
country  with  magnificent  cities,  glorified  by  seminaries  of  learn- 
ing and  temples  of  religion,  that  has  erected  the  family  altar, 
and  made  love  and  home,  and  womanhood  and  manhood  sacred 
and  holy,  I  ask  them  to  gaze  at  that  picture,  and  to  contem- 
plate that  history,  and  to  answer  if  the  republic,  under  the 
kindliness  of  God,  shall  not  live  forever,  and  liberty  survive  all 
time!     (Applause.) 

We  are  confronted  with  difficulties.  It  was  the  question 
of  slavery  and  anti-slavery  before  the  war.  In  the  baptism  of 
fire  and  blood  we  settled  that  great  question,  and  the  heroic 
figure  in  the  contest  was  that  man  whose  memory  we  meet 
to  glorify  today. 

Other  problems  confront  the  American  people.  We  hear 
it  frequently  said  that  our  heroes  have  feet  of  clay.  We  heard 
it  all  too  frequently  said  in  the  ante-bellum  days,  that  Lincoln 
was  a  traitor.  We  heard  it  frequently  charged  that  Douglas 
was  a  traitor;  and  yet,  in  the  calm  after  life,  we  have  come  to 
know  that  each  of  them,  in  the  balance  of  eternal  justice,  held 
by  the  hand  of  Almighty  God,  was  pure  gold,  every  atom  of 
body  and  every  principle  of  soul.  (Applause.)  We  know  that 
these  two  men  had  the  same  end  and  object,  each  placing  coun- 
try and  duty  above  every  other  principle,  each  subordinating 
every  selfish  end  to  the  great  common  cause.  One  of  them 
saw  the  highway  leading  to  that  fruition  in  a  certain  direction. 
The  other  thought  a  better  road  could  be  chosen.  Then  came 
the  battle  of  these  giants.  It  was  a  battle  of  two  men  equipped 
by  nature  as  but  few  men  are.  They  told  us  that  Lincoln  was 
an  uneducated  rail-splitter ;  but  Lincoln  was  a  master  of  our 
English  tongue.  They  told  us  that  Douglas  was  merely  a 
lawyer  and  a  judge ;  and  yet  Douglas'  master  hand  could  touch 
all  the  heart  strings,  and  sweep  the  chords  of  human  emotion. 
These  men  met  and  struggled.  When  the  hour  came,  when  the 
gage  of  battle  had  been  cast,  Lincoln  stood  forth,  an  heroic 
figure,  but  scarce  more  heroic  than  that  other  son  of  Illinois, 
who  summoned  the  nation  to  Lincoln's  aid  and  his  support. 
(Applause.)  We  had  our  bitter  struggles  then.  We  have  them 
now.  The  political  prophet  is  abroad  in  the  land.  He  has  sack- 
cloth  and  ashes  prominently   displayed — sack-cloth  upon   his 


32 

shoulders,  and  ashes  in  his  hair ;  and  the  tears  of  grief  for  our 
country  are  plowing  their  way  over  his  sorrowrul  countenance 
— and  he  has  political  nostrums  to  cure  all  these  ills ! 

We  have  others  who  see  evil  here,  and  weakness  there,  and 
conspiracy  j^onder.  Our  Democratic  friends  (of  which  I  am 
one)  will  charge  sometimes  that  the  Republicans  are  trying  to 
destroy  this  country ;  and  the  Republicans  will  charge,  first, 
that  the  Bull  Moosers  are  trying  to  destroy  this  country 
(laughter)  ;  and  after  jhey  have  finished  with  the  Bull  Moosers, 
will  pay  their  respects  to  us  Democrats  (laughter).  And  all 
of  them,  in  the  past,  have  been  engaged  in  denouncing,  as  bad 
citizens,  that  other  organization  which  has  elected  some  repre- 
sentatives here — the  Socialists.  The  mistake  is  not  in  denounc- 
ing the  methods  of  these  political  organizations.  The  mistake 
is  in  denouncing  the  purposes  of  these  political  organizations. 
The  doctors  are  honest,  and  have  diagnosed  the  complaint  of 
the  patient  (as  doctors  generally  do,  with  a  considerable  dif- 
ference of  opinion)  and  in  like  manner  they  are  seeking  to 
apply  different  remedies ;  but  the  cold,  unembellished  truth  is, 
all  of  them  are  honest  doctors,  wanting  to  apply  an  honest 
remedy,  for  the  benefit  of  the  patient  (applause)  and  the  sooner 
we  discover  that,  and  give  credit  for  honesty  to  each  other, 
the  sooner  we  will  be  on  a  plane  where  we  can  meet  and  com- 
pare views,  and  analyze  facts,  and  ascertain  the  truth.  I  am 
glad  to  say  this,  because  I  believe  this  to  be  true,  that  whether 
our  people  be  Socialists  or  Republicans,  or  Bull  Moosers  (and 
I  wish  you  would  get  a  more  genteel  term,  gentlemen,  for 
your  party),  (laughter),  or  Democrats — that  all  are  patriots, 
all  are  sincere,  and  all  are  seeking  to  make  this  republic  the 
ideal  spot  of  our  fair  earth. 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  in  Douglas'  and  Lincoln's  day,  it 
was  the  question  of  black  slavery.  The  problem  that  now 
confronts  our  race  is  the  question  of  Avhite  slavery. 

The  question,  then,  was  the  breaking  of  the  chains  of  the 
law.  The  question,  now,  is  the  breaking  of  chains  of  fact, 
that  have  been  riveted  upon  the  energies  of  many  of  the  people 
of  our  country. 

I  do  not  come  to  denounce  those  who  have  gained  wealth. 
I  do  not  come  to  make  war  upon  those  who  have  prospered,  but 
I  come  to  announce  this  doctrine  this  afternoon,  that  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago,  it  was  said,  "The  Sabbath  was  made  for 
man;  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath."  I  paraphrase  that  iTtter- 
ance,  by  declaring  that  money  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man 
for  money  (applause),  that  the  sole  and  proper  end  of  human 
government  is  human  happiness,  that  government  was  not 
erected  to  protect  property,  it  was  erected  to  make  men  and 
women  happy  (applause)  ;  and  that  the  reason  we  proceeded 
to  protect  property  was  because  men  and  women  could  not 
be  happy  unless  we  did  protect  them  in  their  property;  but 


33 

the  protection  of  property  was  a  thing  subordinate,  and  sec- 
ondary, to  the  happiness  of  the  race. 

Now,  let  me  not  be  misunderstood,  and  let  no  man  infer 
I  have  announced  a  doctrine  in  favor  of  the  destruction  of 
property.  I  announce  merely  this  doctrine,  that  property 
rights  must  never  be  so  construed  as  to  destroy  human  rights 
(applause)  and  that  such  constructions  of  our  laws  must  come 
about  as  will  keep  the  resources  of  this  countrj^  free  and  open 
for  the  children  of  men  who  are  here  now,  and  so  that  the 
generations  yet  to  come,  upon  this  continent,  may  walk  with 
free  men's  feet,  upon  a  freeman's  soil.     (Applause.) 

The  problem  that  must  be  worked  out,  and  that  confronts 
us  toda}^,  is  a  gigantic  one.  God  Almighty  filled  the  bowels  of 
the  earth  with  lakes  and  rivers  of  oil — enough  of  oil  to  light 
the  feet  of  all  the  men  who  shall  come  here  for  a  thousand 
years — and  it  has  gone  into  the  hands  of  one  concern,  sub- 
stantially; He  put  vast  acres  of  rich  iron  ore  about  us,  and 
throughout  our  land  it  has  gone  into  the  hands  of  one  concern ; 
He  put  vast  deposits  of  copper  under  our  mountains,  and  those 
copper  deposits  have  gone  into  the  hands  of  one  concern ;  He 
put  other  great  resources  here,  enough  to  have  kept  busy  the 
brains  and  hands  of  countless  generations  yet  to  come;  and 
they  have  been  gathered  into  the  hands  of  a  few  great  insti- 
tutions. 

The  result  has  been  with  the  opportunity  for  the  individual 
man,  not  merely  to  make  a  living,  but  to  do  more  than  to  make 
a  living,  and  to  become  an  independent  factor  in  the  business 
life  of  the  community  has  been  circumscribed,  and  will 
eventually  be  destroyed.  (Applause.)  And  it  is  against  that, 
because  I  love  human  liberty  and  individual  independence, 
that  I  raise  my  voice  in  solemn  protest.  (Applause.)  No 
property  right,  ever,  should  be  permitted  to  be  so  construed 
that  it  can  destroy  another  man's  property  right.  No  prop- 
erty right  should  be  so  construed  that  it  can  destroy  the  chance 
of  the  individual  of  the  race,  himself,  to  gain  property;  for 
by  so  doing  you  make  of  property,  not  a  blessing,  but  a  curse. 

My  fellow  citizens,  I  might  follow  that  theme  for  some 
time,  but  I  choose  to  stop  where  I  am.  I  want  to  call  your 
attention  to  Avhat  I  think  made  our  race  great  and  wonderful 
and  splendid.  It  was  not,  sirs,  the  blue  blood  of  an  aristo- 
cratic ancestry.  The  fathers  who  came  here  were  of  the 
earth — earthy.  They  bore  upon  their  backs  the  burdens  of 
twenty  centuries  of  oppression.  Their  minds  were  clouded  with 
ignorance,  and  their  hearts  bowed  down  with  fear.  You  hear 
of  our  revolutionary,  and  ante-revolutionary  ancestry  as  a 
superior  class  of  men !  Let  him  who  entertains  that  delusion 
remember  the  scenes  where,  in  southern  plantations,  they  were 
buying  their  wives  upon  the  auction  block  and  paying  for 
them  with  long  green  tobacco.      Let  him  turn  to  the  picture  of 


34 

Roger  Williams,  driven  into  the  ^yilderness.  Let  him  con- 
template that  southern  colony  that  was  wiped  out,  men,  women 
and  children,  because  they,  worshipped  God  according  to  the 
tenets  of  the  church  that  lifts  its  spires  and  raises  its  crosses, 
today  in  everj'  county  of  the  Union !  Let  him  turn  his  eyes 
to  the  hills  of  Massachusetts,  lurid  with  the  red  flames  that 
licked  up  the  blood  of  poor  old  women,  dying  by  fire  for  the 
imaginary  crime  of  witch-craft !  And  when  you  have  contem- 
plated these  pictures,  you  will  agree  with  me  that  the  men  who 
built  this  country,  originally,  were  simply  the  common  stock  of 
European  countries.     (Applause.) 

"What  was  the  training,  the  emergency,  the  inspiring,  up- 
lifting cause,  that  made  them  become  great?  Why  sirs,  the 
wild  forest  sang  the  song  of  liberty.  The  wild  waves  beckoned 
them,  and  called  them  to  these  shores.  In  the  forest  fastness, 
the  voices  of  opportunity  were  whispering  in  their  ears.  These 
oppressed  and  expatriated  sires  saw  how  their  feet  might  tread 
on  soil  that  they  might  own.  Yonder  stretched  the  broad 
highway,  that  would  lead  to  commercial  ascendency.  They 
might  become  bankers,  or  lawyers,  or  ministers.  They  might 
build  vessels,  and  ply  the  waves  of  the  ocean. 

All  lands  were  theirs  to  conquer.  All  the  fields  of  oppor- 
tunity were  open  to  them;  and  so  at  night,  the  sons  of  these 
sires  were  bending  to  their  tasks.  Beside  the  tallow  dip,  they 
were  looking  into  the  future,  and  storing  knowledge  for  the 
struggles  yet  to  come ;  and  in  one  generation  of  time  we  made 
a  race  of  poets  whose  words  will  be  read  as  long  as  man  shaU 
love  the  music  of  our  tongue.  We  made  orators  whose  words 
of  flame  could  light  the  fires  of  patriotism  in  every  human 
heart,  and  thrill  the  universal  breast  of  man,  and  make  us  all 
love  liberty.  We  made  a  race  of  soldiers  who  could  stand  in 
the  red  line  of  battle,  through  the  snows  of  winter,  who  could 
write  the  story  of  their  patriotism  in  bloody  foot-prints,  amid 
the  snows  and  frosts.  We  made  mothers  who  could  stand  in 
the  cabin  door,  rifle  in  hand,  and  beat  back  the  naked  savage, 
and  keep  the  home  while  the  father  stood  in  the  red  line  at 
the  front.  We  made  soldiers  who  could  follow  Paul  Jones 
from  the  decks  of  his  sinking  vessel  upon  the  great  British 
man  of  war,  climbing  like  tigers  up  her  bloody,  slippery  side, 
as  through  the  smoke  and  flame  of  battle,  the  British  com- 
mander's challenge  was  heard,  asking,  "Have  you  struck  your 
colors  yet?"  and  they  cheered  until  the  vaulted  Heavens 
echoed,  as  Paul  Jones'  voice  rang  on  their  ears,  with  his  profane 
but  holy  rejoinder — "Struck  our  colors!  Why,  by  God,  we 
Yankees  haven't  begun  to  fight  yet!"  (Applause.)  We  made 
that  kind  of  men,  and  that  kind  of  women,  and  as  long  as  we 
shall  keep  the  faith,  as  long  as  these  fair  fields  shall  so  be 
held  that  the  proprietors  may  till  the  soil,  these  mines  shall 
still  yield  their  richness  to  the  hand  of  enterprise,  and  every 


35 

field  of  opportunity  shall  be  open  to  the  youth  of  this  land, 
so  long  there  will  be  happy  homes,  and  every  home  will  be  a 
citadel;  so  long  there  will  be  happy  firesides,  and  every  fireside 
Avill  be  an  altar;  so  long  there  will  be  an  aggregate  of  man- 
hood and  of  womanhood  that  will  keep  the  flag  in  the  Heavens, 
liberty's  glowing  fires  burning  throughout  the  land;  and  a 
race  will  develop  that  can  lift  their  eA^es  without  fear  to  all 
the  world,  and  bow  their  heads  in  reverence  alone  to  the  Al- 
mighty God.  That  is  the  hope  I  entertain,  and  this  is  the 
problem  that  we  must  solve. 

Sometimes  I  dream  of  a  republic  in  which  the  brain  of 
man  shall  have  harnessed  and  made  slave  all  .the  forces  of 
nature;  where  there  shall  be  neither  parasites  to  eat  that  which 
others  have  produced,  nor  drudges  to  toil  at  half-requited 
tasks ;  a  republic  from  which  shall  have  been  banished  the 
sweat-shops  of  labor,  where  the  tired  fingers  of  women  may 
find  time  to  rest,  and  little  children  in  the  morning  of  their 
lives  shall  not  be  herded  in  the  shadow  of  great  mills  that 
men  may  make  a  profit  from  their  toil,  a  republic  in  which  to 
be  merely  rich  shall  be  to  be  only  vulgar ;  a  republic  in  which 
the  crown  of  manhood,  and  the  robe  of  glory  shall  be  reserved 
for  the  men  and  the  women  who  have  toiled  and  fought  for  the 
benefit  of  the  race  of  men.       (Applause.) 

To  this  great  task,  each  true  American  will  devote  his 
heart.  To  this  great  problem  we  must  give  our  energies  with 
all  the  force  with  which  Lincoln  and  Douglas  gave  their 
energies  in  the  days  of  the  past,  and  we  will  solve  this  problem. 

This  might}'  race  will  solve  it,  and  through  all  the  contests 
and  all  the  bitternesses  there  shines,  forever  bright,  the  star 
of  America's  unconquerable  and  unclouded  destiny! 

I  thank  you. 

(Applause.) 

Governor  Dunne: — The  next  number  is  music,  by  the 
Apollo  Quartette. 

Musical  selections. 

Governor  Dunne: — Among  the  notable  citizens  of:  Illinois 
who  would  truly  love  to  be  here  today  to  join  in  this  testimonial 
to  the  illustrious  dead,  is  a  man  who  is  prevented,  by  circum- 
stances over  which  he  had  no  control,  from  being  here,  a  man 
who  has  the  love  and  respect  and  admiration  of  every  citizen 
of  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  who  has  seiwed  this  great  State  in 
the  United  States  Senate  for  so  many  years  past,  Shelby  M. 
Cullom.        (Applause.) 

I  will  read  a  telegram  from  former  Senator  Cullom: 

"Washington,  D.  C.,  April  23,  1913. 
"Honorahle  ^Yalter  I.  Manny,  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on 

Arrangements,  Springfield,  Illinois: 

I  am  exceedingly  sorry  that  I  am  unable  to  join  you  to- 
morroAv,  in  celebrating  the  100th  anniversary  of  the  birth  of 
Stephen  A.  Douglas. 


^^illiam  Taylor  Davidson 


37 

He  was  a  very  great  man,  a  great  debater,  a  great  senator, 
and  a  great  patriot. 

I  have  always  felt  proud  of  the  fact  that  I  introduced  him 
to  the  joint  session  of  the  Illinois  Legislature  on  the  occasion 
of  the  last  address  but  one  that  he  delivered  in  our  State, 
before  he  gave  up  his  life. 

I  have  always  regarded  Stephen  A.  Douglas  and  Lyman 
Trumbull  as  two  of  the  greatest  senators  who  ever  did  honor 
to  our  State  and  country. 

I  sincerely  hope  the  occasion  tomorrow  will  be  fully  worthy 
of  the  great  services  to  the  country  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 

[Signed]       Shelby  M.  Cullom." 
(Applause.) 

Governor  Dunne: — Over  half  a  centuiy  has  passed  away 
since  Stephen  A.  Douglas  went  to  his  great  reward.  We  are 
fortunate  today  in  having  in  our  midst  a  man  who  was  an 
intimate  of  Douglas  in  his  lifetime  and  who  will  now  address 
this  audience. 

I  take  great  pleasure  in  introducing  to  you  the  Honorable 
William  T.  Davidson,  a  very  intimate  friend  of  Douglas  while 
he  was  living.     (Applause.) 

Honorable  William  Taylor  Davidson 

Your  Excellency,  Governor  Dunne,  Gentlemen  of  the  Joint  As- 
sembly, Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

In  introducing  my  address  to  you,  I  beg  your  permission 
to  begin  in  an  old-fashioned  way,  like  a  minister^  with  a  text — 
and  a  very  remarkable  one. 

In  the  opening  of  the  great  debates  between  Lincoln  and 
Douglas,  the  first  one  was  held  in  the  city  of  Ottawa.  Judge 
Douglas  spoke  first,  and  with  exquisite  courtesy  paid  a  beauti- 
ful compliment  to  his  boyhood  friend  but  lifetime  political 
opponent,  to  which,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  arose  at  the  close  of 
the  first  hour,  to  make  his  brilliant  reply,  he  responded  with 
one  of  the  world's  classics.  I  call  your  attention  to  the  re- 
markable language  employed  that  day  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  and 
how  like  the  Gettysburg  speech  was  the  phrasing  then  em- 
ployed.   Mr.  Lincoln  said : 

"Twenty-two  years  ago  Judge  Douglas  and  I  became 
acquainted.  We  were  ])oth  young  then,  he  a  trifle  younger 
than  I.  And  we  were  both  ambitious — I  perhaps  quite  as  much 
as  he.  With  me  the  race  of  ambition  has  been  a  failure — a 
flat  failure.  With  him  it  has  been  one  of  splendid  success. 
His  name  fills  the  nation  and  is  not  unknown  in  foreign  lands. 


38 

I  affect  no  contempt  for  the  high  eminence  he  has  reached. 
I  would  rather  stand  upon  that  eminence  than  wear  the  richest 
crown  that  ever  decked  a  monarch's  brow.  The  judge  means 
to  keep  me  down — not  put  me  down,  I  should  not  say,  for  I 
have  never  been  up." 

That  was  only  three  years  before  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected 
President  of  the  United  States.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  he  did 
not  at  that  time  even  dream  that  such  an  event  could  possibly 
take  place.  There  was  no  hint  that  in  the  providence  of  God 
he  was  going  to  be  lifted  up  through  sorrow  and  tribulation, 
like  another  Moses,  to  lead  the  people  of  this  country,  as  IMoses 
led  the  children  of  Israel,  out  of  the  Wilderness  and  into  the 
Land  of  Promise  that  is  ours  today. 

Abraham  Lincoln  spent  his  boyhood  days  and  earlier  man- 
hood in  an  atmosphere  that  prejjared  him  for  the  tremendous 
struggles  of  his  later  life.  Trained  in  the  hard  battles  of 
pioneer  days,  of  effort  aud  defeat,  his  powers  were  developed 
year  by  year  until  he  was  toughened  and  fitted  to  take  care 
of  the  vital  interests  of  this  country  in  the  awful  emergencies 
of  life  or  death,  union  or  disunion,  that  called  for  the  mastery 
of  a  strong  and  ready  hand.  In  the  greatest  emergency  of 
the  greatest  republic  this  earth  has  ever  known,  when  it  faced 
the  peril  of  being  divided  and  destroyed  forever,  and  in  that 
destruction  obliterating  the  last  hope  of  humanity  all  round 
the  world  of  government  for,  of  and  by  the  people,  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  equal  to  that  mighty  task. 

But  I  am  to  speak  of  another  immortal  son  of  Illinois — of 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  has  been  dead  for  fifty-two  years.  I 
am  standing  here  as  a  militant  Douglas  Democrat  who  has  been 
an  editor  of  a  Democratic  paper  for  fifty-five  yearsi.  fighting 
the  battles  of  the  Douglas  Democrae.y,  and  thanking  God,  who 
has  spared  me  until  today  to  stand  before  this  imperial  audience 
in  the  capital  of  Illinois,  the  scene  of  his  last  magnanimous 
and  heroic  struggle  to  save  the  union  of  his  love  and  to  keep 
Old  Glory  in  the  skies  above  all  the  United  States,  from  the 
Lakes  to  the  Gulf. 

The  gentleman  who  preceded  me  and  who  referred  to 
Douglas'  speech  before  the  Illinois  Legislature  in  1861  as  being 
the  next  to  the  last  of  his  public  utterances,  was  mistaken. 
The  fact  is  that  it  Avas  the  very  last  speech  he  made  in  that 
old  capitol  which  you  have  preserved,  and  which  is  now  in 
use  as  your  Springfield  courthouse.  That  building  should 
stand  forever  for  its  holy  memories.  (Applause.)  It  seems 
to  me  I  can  now  hear  that  cathedral  organ  voice  of  the  dead 
Douglas  there.  It  seems  to  me  if  I  would  listen  I  might  now 
hear  the  sweet  and  gentle  A^oice  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  that 
ancient  hall  of  representatives.  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  if 
you  could  hear  those  voices,  as  it  was  my  privilege  to  hear 
them  in  those  earlier  days,  you  would  preserve  that  sacred 


39 

building  where  posterity  might  worship  and  where,  when  you 
are  gone,  your  children's  children  will  pay  ceaseless  homage 
to  that  holy  shrine.     (Prolonged  applause.) 

But  I  am  to  speak  of  the  dead  Doughis  and  tlie  Douglas 
Democracy  of  his  love.  (Applause.)  Judge  Douglas  died  at 
the  opening  of  the  Civil  War,  June  5,  1861,  amidst  the  lamenta- 
tions of  people  of  all  parties  in  the  Northern  states.  Abraham 
Lincoln  had  then  reached  the  eminence  so  dear  to  him.  The 
opening  notes  of  the  Civil  War  filled  the  land.  Vast  armies 
were  being  organized  North  and  South.  The  earth  trembled 
beneath  the  tread  of  armed  men  from  the  Potomac  to  the 
Rio  Grande.  The  booming  guns  of  Fort  Sumter  drowned  all 
other  emotions.  How  natural  it  was  to  forget  Douglas.  We 
buried  him  beside  the  waters  of  Lake  Michigan,  singing  forever 
a  requiem  near  his  grave,  and  then  he  was  forgotten.  For- 
gotten by  this  generation  was  his  magnanimous  devotion  to 
the  Union,  to  his  boyhood  friend  who  had  defeated  him  for 
the  presidency,  and  to  the  flag.  All  that  this  generation  knows 
of  Douglas  and  the  Douglas  Democracy  has  been  muckraked 
out  of  the  old  villainous  campaigns  of  1858  and  1860 — villainous 
beyond  words  in  its  slanders  and  abuse  of  opposing  candidates. 
As  a  young  editor  in  that  period  I  was  in  that  dirty  game. 
(Laughter  and  applause.)  I  raked  Webster's  dictionary  for 
new  and  vicious  epithets  to  apply  to  Lincoln.  Democrats  told 
a  million  lies  about  him  and  I  did  my  share  of  it.  (Laughter.) 
But  on  bended  knees  we  have  long  since  taken  it  all  back 
and  begged  pardon  of  Almighty  God  and  the  ghost  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  But  you  Republicans  told  a  million  lies  on  Douglas 
and  the  Douglas  Democracy,  and  you  never  have  taken  them 
back.  (Applause  and  laughter.)  To  this  day  your  histories 
and  even  your  schoolbooks  contain  those  rankest  slanders 
against  the  dead  Douglas.  What  a  shame  to  the  State  of 
Illinois ! 

Just  in  this  place  two  or  three  facts  which  I  beg  permission, 
in  all  kindness,  and  in  honor  of  the  dead  Douglas,  to  present 
to  this  great  audience.  For  nearly  sixty  long  years  the  most 
insistent  partisan  declaration  that  has  been  dinned  into  our 
ears  has  been,  "We  Republicans  fought  the  war,  we  saved  the 
Union,  we  freed  the  negroes" — in  spite  of  the  fact  known  to 
everybody  that  in  the  Civil  War  we  Democrats  did  all  the  fight- 
ing on  one  side  and  half  of  it  on  the  other!  (Prolonged  laugh- 
ter and  applause.) 

To  illustrate  the  marvelo\js  effect  of  Douglas'  last  speech 
in  this  city,  we  Democrats  in  old  Fulton  county  for  many  years 
and  during  the  war  were  carrying  every  election  by  about  500 
majority.  Meantime  the  Republicans  were  saying:  "Wait 
until  the  boys  come  back  and  we  will  show  you!"  Our  county 
had  sent  3,300  soldiers  to  the  war.  At  the  close  of  the  war 
those  who  survived  returned    to    their  homes.     In  1866  we 


40 

nominated  for  county  treasurer  a  radical  old  Democratic 
farmer,  while  the  Republicans  nominated  their  strongest  man, 
the  gallant  Col.  Cale  Dilworth  of  the  heroic  old  85th  Illinois 
regiment.  In  the  election  that  followed  the  Democrats  elected 
their  man  by  517  majority.  We  had  gained  15  majority  by 
the  soldier  boys  coming  home!     (Laughter  and  applause.) 

Another  peculiar  fact  on  this  subject  that  comes  to  me 
just  now  is  one  feature  of  the  Republican  platform  adopted  at 
that  party's  first  national  convention  in  1856,  when  Gen.  John 
C.  Fremont  was  nominated  for  the  presidency.  That  platform 
contained  a  declaration  •  of  undying  hostility  to  the  twin 
atrocities,  or  infamies,  or  something — (turning  to  Gov.  Yates, 
who  sat  upon  the  platform)  :  Gov.  Yates,  what  was  that 
phrase?     I  do  not  recall  it. 

Gov.  Yates  : — It  was  ' '  The  twin  relics  of  barbarism,  slavery 
and  polygamy." 

Mr.  Davidson  (continuing)  : — Yes,  that  is  it,  "twin  relics 
of  barbarism,  slavery  and  polygamy."  The  last  thing  I  heard 
of  the  Republican  party  last  fall  was  that  Utah  was  the  only 
state  they  really  hoped  to  carry  for  Taft  and  all  the  standpat 
Republican  bosses,  except  my  distinguished  friend,  Gov.  Yates, 
were  trying  to  crawl  into  bed  with  Senator  Reed  Smoot  of 
that  state  and  his  seventeen  wives.  (Prolonged  applause  and 
shrieks  of  laughter.) 

Our  friends,  the  Republicans,  for  sixty  years  have  also 
been  howling,  "We  freed  the  negroes!"  It  was  an  aucient 
bull  moose  proclamation  for  the  humanities.  Our  friends 
should  be  really  proud  of  that  achievement,  and  we  Democrats 
have  no  fault  to  find  with  them  on  that  score.  But  I  recall 
the  fact,  known  of  all  Americans  of  ante-bellum  days,  that 
when  we  Democrats  were  running  this  country  the  negro  slaves 
were  fat  and  sassy,  the  best  cared  for  and  happiest  people  on 
the  globe,  and  were  worth  on  the  average  $1,000  apiece.  But 
smce  the  Republicans  have  come  into  power  the  niggers  are 
not  worth  two  bits  a  dozen  and  you've  got  them  to  burn  right 
here  in  the  city  of  Springfield  under  the  shadow  of  Lincoln's 
colossal  monument.      (Prolonged  laughter  and  applause.) 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  hope  you  will  pardon  the  seeming 
rudeness  of  these  facts  I  have  given  you  in  retaliation  for 
the  injustice  done  the  great  Douglas  since  his  death  53  years 
ago.  Because  of  the  late  hour  and  the  fact  that  two  distin- 
guished United  States  Senators  and  other  eloquent  gentlemen 
are  yet  to  address  you,  I  cannot  go  into  the  subject  of  the 
great  debates  of  1858  except  to  say  that  there  was  but  one 
clear  cut  issue  considered  in  that  forensic  battle,  the  status 
of  slavery  in  the  territories. 

Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party  contended  that  Congress  had 
the  power  and  by  legislation  should  keep  slavery  out  of  them. 


41 

Jefferson  Davis  and  his  brother  Southern  radicals  agreed  with 
Lincoln  and  his  party  that  Congress  had  all  power  over  the 
question,  but  tluit  by  law  it  should  protect  slavery  in  the 
territories. 

Douglas  and  the  conservative  Democrats  North  and  South 
held  that  it  was  a  local  and  domestic  concern  and  under  the 
Constitution  should  be  exclusively  and  finally  settled  by  the 
people  of  the  respective  states  and  by  the  people  of  the  ter- 
ritories when  under  the  law  they  came  to  organize  a  territorial 
government.  I  presume  there  is  not  a  person  in  this  great 
audience  who  will  not  now  confess  that  the  people  of  the  North 
never  would  have  submitted  to  the  despotic  contention  of  the 
South,  and  equally  that  the  people  of  the  South  never  would 
have  submitted  to  the  radical  contention  of  the  Republican 
party.  Either  horn  of  the  dilemma  spelt  Civil  War  or  a 
dissolution  of  the  Union  and  the  final  and  awful  ending  of  this 
last  and  brightest  hope  of  government  of,  by  and  for  the  people. 
May  I  call  your  attention  to  this  fact,  that  the  pending  Japan- 
ese imbroglio  in  California  is  a  perfect  illustration  of  the  con- 
tention above  referred  to.  Nobody  now  denies  that  Gov. 
Johnson  and  the  Legislature  of  that  state  have  the  right  to 
determine  their  local  and  domestic  concerns  under  the  Con- 
stitution, and  with  due  obedience  to  all  treaty  rights. 

Douglas  won  the  senatorship,  but  two  years  later,  through 
the  secession  of  southern  Democrats  and  the  division  of  tlie 
party  he  was  defeated  for  the  presidency.  At  last  Douglas 
had  met  his  first  and  final  defeat.  At  last  his  boyhood  friend, 
but  political  opponent,  had  reached  the  eminence  more  dear  to 
him  than  Europe's  richest  crown.  The  echoes  of  the  election 
had  not  died  away  when  the  Southern  states  commenced  the 
awful  blunder  and  crime  of  secession.  Bitterness,  hate  and 
vengeance  filled  the  Southland.  Intrigue  and  assassination 
hovered  about  the  capital.  Lincoln  was  wisely  guarded  from 
his  home  in  Springfield  to  Washington.  There  were  bold  threats 
that  he  would  not  live  to  take  the  oath  of  office  on  the  4th  of 
March.  1861.  A  strange  thing  happened  that  day,  and  it  was 
not  an  accident.  Nearest  to  Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  supremest 
hour  of  his  life,  on  the  marble  steps  of  the  capitol,  stood  his 
illustrious  defeated  opponent,  Senator  Douglas.  It  was  not  an 
accident.  In  the  limelight  of  the  nation — in  the  gaze  of  a  mil- 
lion and  a  half  of  Democrats  who  for  a  generation  had  wor- 
shipped and  stood  by  Douglas  as  their  imperial  leader — there 
he  stood  as  a  proclamation  to  them  all  that  he  was  going  to 
stand  by  the  man  who  had  been  elected  under  the  Constitution 
as  President  of  the  United  States — that  he  was  going  to  stand 
by  Lincoln  in  enforcing  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  and  in 
preserving  the  Union  at  whatever  expenditure  of  billions  in 
treasure  and  rivers  of  blood  if  need  be.  Others  may  have  been 
a  little  nervous  as  to  possible  bullets  or  daggers,  I  know  not. 
But  when  Lincoln  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  his  first  shiny 
plug  hat,  the  courtly  Douglas  took   and  held  it  during  the 


42 

inaugural  address  and  while  the  oath  of  office  was  administered 
— held  the  hat  in  his  left  hand  while  with  his  right  he  clutched 
a  Colt's  revolver  in  his  pocket — stood  there  to  defend  the 
President  with  his  life,  if  need  be.  And  that  is  the  Douglas 
for  whom  I  am  pleading  this  day,  0,  men  and  women  of  Illinois, 
that  you,  too,  shall  love  and  honor  him. 

That  afternoon  Douglas  was  called  to  the  White  House  for 
a  three  hour  consultation  with  the  new  President  while  his 
partisans  and  new  cabinet  were  shut  out  from  that  magnan- 
imous and  holy  convocation.  All  that  passed  between  them  at 
that  fateful  conference  will  never  be  known.  But  the  tele- 
graph wires  were  busy  with  the  momentous  event  and  next  day 
the  people  from  Maine  to  the  Pacific  knew  that  Douglas  was 
going  to  stand  by  Lincoln.  One  thing  we  do  know,  and  that 
is  that  Lincoln  implored  Douglas  to  go  at  once  to  Chicago  and 
Springfield  to  rally  Illinois  Democrats  to  his  support.  His 
childhood  frailty  and  feebleness  had  come  back  upon  him  in 
the  tremendous  strain  he  had  endured  in  and  out  of  the  Senate 
to  save  the  Union  from  secession  and  civil  war.  It  was  a 
feeble  and  dying  man  who  reached  Chicago  and  to  a  mighty 
multitude  delivered  the  great  speech  rallying  Democrats  to 
the  support  of  Lincoln  and  the  Union.  That  speech  is  a 
classic  that  should  be  in  all  our  school  histories  and  readers. 
But  it,  too,  has  been  forgotten.  Almost  helpless  he  was  carried 
to  a  private  car  and  taken  to  Springfield.  His  physicians  and 
friends  warned  him  it  was  taking  his  life  in  his  hands  to  go. 
But  he  was  as  willing  to  die  for  the  Union  as  he  had  been  to 
die  for  the  President.  War  Governor  Richard  Yates  had  called 
the  Legislature  in  special  session.  It  w^as  a  strange  sight  that 
met  Douglas  as  he  reached  the  old  state  house.  The  streets 
were  crowded  with  members  of  the  Legislature  and  prominent 
citizens  from  all  parts  of  the  State.  Particularly  conspicuous 
were  the  "war  horses"  and  chieftains  of  the  Democracy  from 
central  and  Southern  Illinois.  They  were  wild  over  the  pro- 
gressive secession  of  southern  states  and  the  opening  notes  of 
civil  war.  Their  horror  of  it  all  and  their  bitterness  were 
beyond  all  bounds. 

Let  me  frankly  tell  you  that  we  Democrats  did  not  take 
kindly  to  the  abolition-secession  Civil  War  gotten  up  by  hot- 
bloods  South  and  North.  We  had  seen  it  coming  for  years. 
For  years  by  tongue  and  pen  we  had  been  pleading  for  com- 
promise, fraternity  and  loyalty  to  the  Constitution  and  the 
Union,  and  in  vain.  We  were  sneered  at  as  "union-savers." 
The  word  "compromise"  was  condemned  as  overt  treason.  On 
the  one  hand  we  heard  the  silly  boast:  "The  old  women  of  the 
North  with  their  brooms  can  sweep  the  South  into  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico. ' '  On  the  other  hand  was  the  fool  boast :  ' '  One  Southern 
man  can  lick  five  Yankees."  Right  or  wrong,  we  Democrats 
didn't  like  the  Civil  War  at  its  beginning.  We  did  not  know 
as  did  Douglas,  and  until  at  Chicago  and  Springfield  he  exposed 
the  fact,  that  Southern  conspirators  for  years  had  been  secretly 


48 

plotting  to  destroy  the  Union  to  save  slavery.  And  so  it  was 
that  at  Springfield  Douglas  found  his  old  party  comrades  by 
scores  in  bitter  opposition  to  Lincoln  and  his  war  measures. 
Among  them  was  one  striking  and  unique  figure,  the  most  com- 
manding and  wildest  of  them  all.  In  stentorian  tones  and  with 
a  profanity  that  shamed  the  army  in  Flanders  he  was  denounc- 
ing Lincoln  as  the  greatest  traitor  on  earth  except  one,  and  that 
was  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  Avho  had  not  only  played  traitor  to 
the  Constitution  and  the  Union  by  going  over  to  Lincoln  and 
his  abolition  war,  but  also  had  played  traitor  to  the  Democracy 
who  had  stood  by  him  in  storm  and  shine  for  a  generation.  On 
that  pregnant  day  that  man  "about  faced"  to  salute  Lincoln 
and  Old  Glory.  He  became  the  bravest,  most  dashing  and  best 
beloved  general  in  our  western  Union  army  under  Grant  and 
Sherman — was  more  adored  by  our  western  soldiers  than  either 
of  them.  Again,  as  in  Chicago  in  1850,  he  was  facing  a  sullen 
and  angry  mulutitude.  Pitifully  feeble  otherwise,  he  yet  re- 
tained that  unmatched  cathedral  organ  voice  that  thrilled  the 
bodies  and  souls  of  men.  In  its  results  it  was  the  greatest 
oration  ever  made  by  mortal.  He  put  all  his  ebbing  vitality 
into  the  last  impassioned  cry: 

"In  this  crisis  of  the  republic  there  can  be  no  Democrats 
or  Republicans.  There  is  no  middle  ground.  It  is  up  to  the 
man.      He  can  only  be  a  patriot  or  a  traitor!" 

It  was  enough.  At  the  touch  of  a  magic  hand,  at  the 
sound  of  that  unmatched  voice  that  has  been  silent  52  years, 
the  murky  Illinois  waters  of  treason  were  changed  into  the 
glowing  rich  wine  of  patriotism  and  loyalty  to  country,  and 
the  John  A.  Logans,  IMeClellands,  Marshalls,  Morrisons  and 
uncounted  hosts  of  Illinois  Democrats  were  marshalled  as  by 
magic  into  the  armies  of  the  Union. 

I  am  speaking  of  the  Douglas,  in  the  hour  of  his  country's 
peril,  whose  bugle  blast  was  worth  a  million  men  for  its  salva- 
tion. "But  for  Douglas,"  says  my  honored  friend,  Col.  Clark 
E.  Carr,  in  his  "Illini,"  "the  war  of  the  states  would  have  com- 
menced on  the  prairies  of  Illinois  instead  of  in  the  harbor  of 
Charleston,  South  Carolina." 

Douj'-'as  was  eently  and  lovingly  conveyed  back  to  his 
home  in  Chicago  where  a  few  days  later,  June  5,  1861,  he  died 
amidst  the  lamentations  of  a  million  men  and  women  from 
ocean  to  ocean.  Stalwart  men  in  every  city  and  hamlet  of 
Illinois  cried  for  the  dead  Douglas  as  a  mother  cries  for  her 
dead  child.  At  the  funeral  obseauies  in  my  own  little  city 
the  orators  of  both  parties  broke  down  with  sobs  as  they  con- 
fessed and  praised  his  sacrifices,  his  matchless  magnanimity, 
his  splendid  achievements  as  a  statesman  and  his  patriotism 
unsurpassed  by  mortal  in  ancient  or  modern  times.  The  great 
choirs  from  all  the  churches  tried  in  vain  with  tear-splashed 
faces  and  quivering  voices  to  render  the  solemn  requiems  that 
are  only  sung  for  kings  and  emperors  and  the  mighty  men 
of  earth  gone  to  their  rest.      His  last  words  were:    "Tell  my 


44 

children  to  obey  the  Constitution  and  the  laws,"  They  were 
the  keynote  and  inspiration  of  his  life.  Had  they  been  the 
keynote  of  our  national  life,  North  and  South,  there  would 
have  been  no  seceding  states,  no  horrid  civil  war,  and  long  since 
slavery  would  have  vanished  from  this  republic  as  it  has  long 
since  disappeared  from  earth,  without  the  shedding  of  human 
blood,  through  the  irresistible  influence  of  i3ublic  conscience 
aroused  to  horrified  condemnation  of  that  monstrous  crime. 

In  the  prime  of  his  splendid  life  Douglas  died  a  martyr 
to  the  Union  and  the  flag.  His  unparalleled  labors  to  save  us 
from  secession  and  civil  war  were  in  vain.  But,  thank  God,  he 
did  live  long  enough  with  his  dying  breath,  with  superhuman 
magnanimity  to  rally  his  adoring  legions  to  the  defense  of 
Lincoln,  the  Blessed,  and  the  Union  of  our  love.  What  mag- 
nanimity!    What  loyalty! 

I  am  here  pleading  with  my  fellow  countrymen  to  help 
me  bring  back  to  glowing  life  the  long  dead  and  misunderstood, 
if  not  forgotten  Douglas.  When  the  truth  of  history  is  made 
plain — when  the  second  centennial  of  his  birth  shall  be  honored 
in  this  fair  city  of  Springfield,  a  grateful  nation  in  its  Hall  of 
Fame,  high  up  beside  the  name  of  the  immortal  Lincoln,  will 
have  placed  in  letters  of  living  light  the  adored  name  of  Stephen 
Arnold  Douglas. 

Governor  Dunne  : — It  has  become  apparent  that  with  the 
hour  getting  late,  we  will  not  be  able  to  hear  our  two  distin- 
guished Senators  at  this  session,  and  after  a  consultation  with 
the  committee  on  arrangements,  after  the  next  speaker,  Mr. 
Everett  Jennings,  we  will  take  an  adjournment  until  eight 
o'clock  this  evening,  when  we  will  hear  from  Senators  Sherman 
and  Lewis. 

At  this  time  I  take  great  pleasure  in  introducing  the  next 
speaker  this  afternoon,  Assistant  State's  Attorney  of  Cook 
County,  Everett  Jennings.       (Applause.) 

Honorable  Everett  Jennings 

Governor    Dunne,    Members    of    the    Legislature,    Ladies    and 

Gentlemen: 

I  do  not  intend  to  inflict  a  speech  upon  you  at  this  time  of 
the  day.  I  am  commissioned  to  come  here  by  the  young  men 
of  Illinois  and  in  a  few  brief  words  will  undertake  to  tell  you 
how  we  young  men,  Democrats  and  Republicans,  young  men 
of  every  religion  and  every  nationality,  love  the  name  and  the 
fame  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 

I  listened  to  a  splendid  speech  this  afternoon  and  I  won- 
dered what  I  could  say  that  would  entertain  this  audience  after 
you  had  listened  to  the  magnetic  words  of  Senator  Reed ;  and  I 
wondered  what  I  could  say  after  you  had  heard  the  grandson  of 
the  immortal  man,  whose  name  you  now  honor.  I  wondered 
what  I  could  say  when  I  am  to  be  followed  by  your  gifted  and 
learned  Senator  Sherman  and  by  your  eloquent  and   distin- 


Everett  Jennings 


46 

guished  Senator  Lewis,  but  I  knew  you  would  grant  to  a  young 
man  the  opportunity  of  representing  the  young  men  and  of 
appearing  before  you,  following  an  old  man,,  ripe  in  years  and 
ripe  in  experience,  and  saying  to  you  as  he  loved  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  who  knew  him,  we  love  Stephen  A.  Douglas  who  did 
not  know  him  but  who  know  his  fame  and  love  his  record. 
(Applause.) 

Viewed  from  any  standpoint,  Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  a 
marvelous  man.  His  grandfather  was  with  Washington  and 
passed  that  terrible  winter  at  Valley  Forge.  He  fought  to  the 
end  of  the  war  and  was  present  at  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis. 
Douglas'  ancestry  was  historical  and  heroic. 

The  young  government  which  the  patriotism  of  Douglas' 
ancestors  and  ours  gave  to  us  startled  the  world  with  its  growth, 
territorial  and  material.  Here  we  have  liberty  and  law,  domes- 
tic peace  and  prosperity,  homes  and  happiness.  In  the  race  of 
nations  we  have  outstripped  all  others. 

Stephen  A.  Douglas,  proud,  young  and  poor,  came  to  Illi- 
nois and  made  Winchester  his  home.  A  stranger  in  a  strange 
land  he  displayed  in  the  early  struggles  of  life  the  ability,  cour- 
age and  determination  which  his  grandfather  had  shown  in 
the  War  of  the  Revolution.  His  rise  was  instantaneous  and 
rapid.  Becoming  a  lawyer,  he  filled  the  offices  of  Attorney 
General,  member  of  the  Legislature,  Registrar  of  the  Land 
Office,  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and  member  of  Congress, 
and  all  this  was  done  in  ten  years  after  he  came  to  Illinois,  and 
by  the  time  he  reached  thirty  years  of  age. 

Unaided  and  alone,  with  his  own  strong  arm,  brave  heart 
and  fertile  brain,  these  successes  came  to  him.  For  him  there 
was  no  troop  of  influential  connections  or  family  partisans 
ready  to  puff  him  into  prompt  notice  or  force  him  upon  fame. 
These  honors  did  not  come  to  him  by  chance,  but  were  won  in 
many  hard  fought  battles  on  the  stump  and  in  the  court  house. 
Like  steel  from  flint,  the  collision  with  other  minds  struck  in- 
stant fire  from  his  own.  In  the  battles  of  life  he  had  developed 
into  a  great  soldier  and  was  ready  and  prepared  for  the  war- 
fare of  a  great  national  career. 

Napoleon,  it  is  said,  played  in  infancy  with  a  miniature 
cannon.  From  that  the  image  of  war  may  have  been  stamped 
on  the  mind  of  the  Conqueror  of  Europe.  The  inspiration  of 
Douglas  could  be  attributed  to  the  brilliant  career  of  his  grand- 
father. This  early  eminence  of  fame  and  influence  might,  to 
a  soul  less  ardent,  have  seemed  the  very  topmost  pinnacle,  but 
to  Stephen  A.  Douglas  it  was  but  a  momentary  resting  place 
from  which  he  would  climb  to  dizzier  heights  and  greater  fame. 
(Applause.) 

The  slavery  question  in  its  territorial  phase  was  constantly 
uppermost  in  Congerss  and  in  the  Senate.  The  lines  for  the 
great  parliamentary  battle  just  preceding  the  Civil  War  were 
beginning  to  be  drawn.  To  win  in  the  Senate  a  leadership 
such  as  he  had  readily  won  among  his  fellows  at  school,  in  the 


47 

Democratic  organization  of  Illinois,  at  the  bar,  such  as  he  was 
then  winning  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  then  to  find 
and  establish  the  right  policy  with  reference  to  slavery,  and 
particularly  slavery  in  the  territories — there  lay  his  path.  This 
was  his  duty.  This  was  his  ambition.  That  he  could  be  a 
leader  in  the  Senate,  he  did  not  question ;  the  Senate  in  which 
were  Clay,  Webster,  Benton  and  Crittenden,  and  many  other 
giants;  that  he  could  solve  the  slavery  question  and  save  the 
Union  he  did  not  doubt,  though  all  others  had  failed. 

Stephen  A.  Douglas  belonged  to  that  class  of  minds  who 
in  every  situation  and  under  every  form  of  government  are 
found  the  unflinching  advocates  of  rational  and  regulated 
liberty  founded  on  principles  fixed  and  eternal. 

He  followed  Jefferson  and  Jackson  and  believed  their 
principles  sufficient  for  the  settlement  of  every  public  question. 
He  regarded  Government  as  something  framed  for  the  defense 
of  the  weak  against  the  strong,  of  the  few  against  the  man>, 
and  considered  human  rights  as  only  safe  where  fixed  laws, 
and  not  fluctuating  caprices  of  men  and  parties,  were  supreme. 

Douglas  was  an  expansionist.  He  dreamed  of  an  ocean 
bound  republic.  He  objected  to  the  promise  in  the  treaty  of 
peace  with  Mexico,  that  we  would  never  acquire  other  territory 
as  we  had  acquired  Texas.  He  was  vindicated  and  our  Gov- 
ernment afterwards  paid  ten  millions  of  money  to  have  the 
treaty  changed  in  that  regard. 

He  opposed  the  Bulwer- Clayton  treaty,  because  he  did  not 
desire  to  hinder  our  future  generations  in  acquiring  territory 
in  Central  America,  and  upon  this  subject  he  said  in  the  Senate : 
"You  may  make  as  many  treaties  as  you  please  to  fetter  the 
limbs  of  this  giant  republic,  and  she  will  burst  them  all  from 
her,  and  her  course  will  be  onward  to  a  limit  which  I  will  not 
venture  to  describe." 

His  was  a  life  full  of  brave  battles,  full  of  courageous  con- 
duct, and  full  of  patriotic  purpose.  His  victory  over  the  im- 
mortal Lincoln  for  Senator  against  the  Democratic  administra- 
tion in  power,  combined  with  the  Republicans  and  the  growing 
sentiment  against  slavery,  is  the  most  stupendous  political 
victory  in  all  the  tide  of  time. 

He  became  and  remained  to  his  death  the  leader  of  the 
Senate,  as  he  had  been  the  leader  in  every  other  field  of  contest. 
To  do  full  justice  to  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  we  should  remember, 
as  we  compare  him  with  Lincoln  in  Illinois,  and  other  states- 
men and  rivals  in  the  Senate,  that  Douglas'  bark  was  on  an 
ebbing  tide  while  they  were  lifted  on  a  flowing  tide. 

His  greatest  and  crowning  work  was  done  in  the  United 
States  Senate  during  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life.  He  fought 
in  that  arena  the  greatest  forensic  battles  ever  waged  since 
the  flight  in  years  began.  He  dedicated  his  life  with  all  this 
power,  as  a  debater  and  all  his  force  as  a  statesman,  to  the 
settlement  of  the  questions  dividing  the  North  and  South,  and 
which  threatened  to  dissolve  the  Union. 


48 

"With  all  the  force  of  his  rare  genius,  his  commanding 
character,  and  his  imperious  will,  he  sought  to  bring  the  North 
and  South  together.  He  saw,  as  no  other  statesman  of  his 
day  saw,  the  dire  disaster  of  a  divided  country,  and  the  hor- 
rors of  a  war  between  brothers.  Even  after  South  Carolina 
had  seceded  from  the  Union,  he  hoped  to  avert  war.  In  a 
speech  urging  arbitration  and  pleading  for  compromise,  he  said : 

"Secession  is  wrong,  unlawful,  unconstitutional  and  crim- 
inal. South  Carolina  had  no  right  to  secede.  The  rights  of 
the  Federal  Government  remain^,  but  possession  is  lost.  How 
can  possession  be  regained — by  arms  or  by  a  peaceable  adjust- 
ment of  the  matters  in  controversy?  Are  we  prepared  for 
war?  I  do  not  mean  the  kind  of  preparation  which  consists 
of  armies  and  navies  and  supplies  and  munitions  for  war,  but 
are  we  prepared  for  war  with  our  own  brethren  and  kindred? 
I  confess  I  am  not." 

"When  the  die  was  cast,  when  the  Kubicon  was  crossed, 
when  the  war  came,  Douglas  was  heart  and  soul  with  the 
Union.  He  could  not  stem  the  tide.  He  could  not  prevent 
war.  God  passed  the  rod  over  the  land  and  smote  his  people. 
The  war  with  all  its  horrors  came,  but  Douglas  did  not  live  to 
witness  it.  This  supreme  struggle  of  the  life  of  this  great  man 
was  waged  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  to  save  his  coun- 
try, to  avoid  shedding  blood  and  to  avert  the  destruction  of 
human  life.  God  never  made  a  nobler  man  than  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,  or  gave  to  man  a  nobler  purpose  than  this.  In 
this  struggle,  Douglas  lost,  his  health  was  gone,  his  heart 
was  broken.  He  died  little  past  middle  life,  the  monarch  of 
the  Senate  was  conquered.  As  was  said  of  Ben  Hill:  "His 
sun  went  down  at  noon,  but  it  sank  amid  the  prophetic 
splendors  of  an  eternal  dawn." 

The  Constitution  of  our  country  had  been  his  pillar  of 
cloud  by  day  and  his  pillar  of  fire  by  night.  Lifting  his  eyes 
in  death,  with  the  last  feeble  pulsation  of  his  breaking  heart 
and  the  last  faint  exhalation  of  his  fleeting  breath,  he  left  this 
message  to  his  baby  boys:  "Tell  them  to  obey  the  laws  and 
support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 

I  thank  you.       (Applause.) 

Governor  Dunne  : — "We  will  now  adjourn  and  continue  the 
exercises  this  evening  at  eight  o'clock.  All  are  welcome  and 
there  will  be  no  tickets  of  admission  necessary  for  tonight. 

"Whereupon  a  recess  was  taken  nntil  eight  o'clock  of  the 
evening  of  the  same  day. 


Stephen  A.  Douglas 


50 


Douglas  Centenary  Reconvened  at  Eight  o' Clock  P.  xvl. 

in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 

Governor  Dunne,  Presiding. 

GOVERXOR  DUXXE 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

It  would  be  work  of  supererrogation  for  me  to  introduce  to 
this  audience,  or  in  fact  to  any  audience  in  the  State  of  Illinois, 
either  of  the  two  gentlemen  who  will  address  this  meeting 
tonight.  Both  of  these  gentlemen  have  been  prominently 
before  the  people  of  the  State  of  Illinois  diu-ing  the  last  two 
years,  as  candidates  for  the  position  of  United  States  Senator, 
representing  this  State  in  the  upper  House  of  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States. 

There  is  not  a  man  or  a  woman  in  this  hall  tonight  who  has 
not  met  personally,  I  am  satisfied,  or  heard  personally,  either 
one  or  both  of  these  gifted  gentlemen.  One  of  them  received 
the  endoi*sement  of  the  people  of  his  party  at  the  polls,  when 
he  appealed  to  the  Republican  rank  and  file.  The  other  received 
the  endorsement  of  his  party  when  he  appealed  to  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  Democratic  party. 

"^iVith  the  usual  courtesy  that  distinguishes  both  of  these 
gentlemen,  each  has  been  asking  for  the  other  the  position  of 
honor  tonight — in  other  words,  the  privilege  of  first  addressing 
this  audience.  Senator  Sherman  insists  that  Senator  Lewis 
should  have  that  right :  Senator  Lewis  insists  that  Senator 
Sherman  should  have  that  right. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  we  are  celebrating  the  memory 
and  the  name  and  fame  of  a  great  Democrat,  I  have  thought  it 
fit  and  proper  that  if  there  is  any  rank  of  priority  in  doing 
honor  to  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  that  it  should  be  accorded  to  the 
Republican  Senator  from  the  State  of  Illinois,  Mr.  Sherman, 
(Applause.) 

I  take  great  pleasure  in  asking,  now — not  introducing,  but 
asking.  Lawrence  Y.  Sherman.  L'nited  States  Senator  from  this 
State,  to  address  this  audience.  (Applause.) 

Honorable  La^\Trence  Y.  Sherman 

Governor  Dunne,  the  Members  of  the  General  Assembly,  who 
are  met  in  Joint  Session,  and  all  others  who  are  present 
tonight: 

I  return  to  vou  mv  thanks  for  the  courtesv  of  the  invitation 
extended  to  me  personally,  and.  through  me.  to  all  those  of 
my  political  belief.  It  is  manifestly  fitting  that  all,  without 
regard  to  party  affiliation,  shall  meet  here  on  this  day. 


s> 


Lawrence  Y.  Sherman 


LIBRARY 

iiwi\fCR<;rrv  Of  nMNfT 


52 

It  is  eminently  fitting  that  the  anniversary  marking  the 
one  hundredth  milestone  since  the  birth  of  a  great  American 
should  be  kept  ■without  regard  to  the  political  belief  of  the 
person  whose  name  we  tonight  honor. 

It  is  always  proper  to  remember  with  some  fitting  tribute 
those  who  have  stood  out  from  their  fellows.  It  is  not  because 
such  men  are  any  better  than  others.  It  is  only  because  they 
have  developed  the  qualities,  and  have  inspired  the  confidence 
always  necessary  in  the  spokesmanship  for  a  great  body  of 
people. 

TVithout  that  confidence,  and  without  that  ability,  there 
can  be  no  leadership :  and  the  leaders  only  represent  those  who 
believe  in  them,  and  who  follow  them,  in  the  struggles  that 
sweep  over  the  field  of  American  politics. 

There  is  no  place  in  this  republic  where  it  is  more  proper 
than  the  birthday,  and  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  that 
birthday  be  celebrated,  than  here  in  Illinois ;  not  because,  by 
the  mere  accident  of  birth  or  otherwise,  either  of  the  men  whose 
names  unconsciously  arise  in  our  memories,  belonged  here  in 
Illinois ;  not  because  their  birthplaces  were  elsewhere,  but  be- 
cause in  all  their  mature  manhood,  and  in  their  finished  efforts 
of  the  best  years  of  their  lives,  the  theatre  of  their  action  was 
in  this  State  first,  and,  later,  in  the  entire  field  of  Kepublican 
and  Democratic  politics.     (Applause.) 

It  was  polities  in  the  better  and  the  higher  sense.  It  was 
politics  in  the  governmental  sense,  not  a  mere  strife  for  empty 
victory,  not  a  struggle  over  the  right  to  control  payrolls.  It 
was  a  struggle  over  the  vital  and  elementary  things  of  human 
government  in  this  republic.  It  was  a  high  t^-pe  of  politics, 
and  the  keynote  of  that  politics  was  first  struck  in  the  State 
of  Illinois  in  the  great  Lincoln-Douglas  debates  of  1858,  in  this 
State.     (Applause.) 

These  men  began  a  local  fight,  if  I  may  be  allowed  to  use 
the  phrase,  in  Illinois :  and  before  it  was  ended  the  struggle 
was  national.  Their  followers  still  live  in  this  State,  some 
of  them  who  were  active  in  the  campaign.  It  is  entirely  proper 
for  me  to  say  what  they  cannot.  I  do  not  remember  the  days 
of  that  struggle.  The  most  of  my  generation  were  in  their 
cradles  when  it  began.  "WTien  it  ended,  we  had  not  yet  ar- 
rived at  the  dignity  of  understanding. 

"We  have  heard  the  followers  of  Douglas  say  that  the 
Republicans  who  fought  him  in  campaigns,  here  and  elsewhere, 
did  not  do  him  justice,  and  do  not  now,  such  of  them  as  are 
spared  in  the  list  of  mortality,  do  him  justice.  I  have  heard 
the  same  remark  of  his  great  antagonist,  Lincoln.  I  believe 
they  are  both  correct. 

Some  of  them  may  have  done  the  honorable  thing  and  the 
just  thing,  in  the   acknowledgment   of  their  errors,  if  there 


53 

were  such  errors ;  but  for  the  men  of  my  generation  Ave  can 
truthfully  say  that  according  to  their  lights,  that  these  two 
men  of  Illinois  gave  to  this  republic  a  higher  level  of  politics, 
and  performed  a  duty  second  to  no  citizen  in  this  republic 
in  the  hour  when  great  issues  crowded  to  the  front  for  set- 
tlement. 

I  have  prepared  brief  notes,  with  quotations,  in  order  that 
I  might  be  correct,  and  in  the  few  moments  that  I  can  look 
into  your  faces,  I  will  endeavor  to  adhere  strictly  to  the  line 
that  I  have  marked  out  to  abide  by,  in  this  address. 

It  is  useless  for  me  to  say  that  this  is  hallowed  ground. 
Men  have  made  pilgrimages  from  many  remote  parts  of  the 
earth,  that  they  might  linger  in  Springfield.  There  are  few 
who  come  here,  who  know  the  history  of  this  country,  who 
do  not,  at  the  same  time  they  pay  a  tribute  to  Lincoln,  remember 
his  great  colleague  in  that  struggle,  because  in  its  conclusion 
he  was  a  colleague. 

From  this  capital  at  one  time  there  originated  a  forensic 
struggle  that  was  titanic  in  its  elements  and  in  its  actors. 

It  is  difficult,  after  more  than  half  a  century  has  elapsed, 
to  study  the  controversy  and  the  men  who  conducted  it,  with- 
out a  quickening  pulse  and  a  brightening  eye.  Both  of  them 
developed  their  peculiar  powers  in  the  pioneer  life  of  Illinois. 
Both  sprang  from  the  people.  Both  had  the  same  inheritances 
of  head,  and  heart  and  hand.  One  was  a  woodman  and  a  flat- 
boatman.  The  other  was  a  cabinet-maker.  One  was  a  sur- 
veyor. The  other  was  an  auctioneer's  clerk.  Both  were  law- 
students.  Both  were  afterwards  lawyers,  both  were  members 
of  the  Legislature.  Both  were  stump  speech  debaters  in  the 
manner  of  that  time,  that  has  endured  to  the  present  hour. 
Both  became  the  chiefs  of  great  political  parties.  Both  became 
candidates  for  LTnited  States  Senator.  Both  were  candidates 
for  the  Presidency,  but  alwa^^s,  wherever  they  were,  whether 
in  the  midst  of  the  primeval  forest,  or  crossing  the  channels 
of  the  inland  rivers,  whether  they  were  in  court,  or  in  a  cam- 
paign, they  were  always  an  inspiration  and  type  for  the  youth 
of  the  country  to  emulate,  and  the  men  of  this  republic  to 
admire. 

We  owe,  tonight,  to  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  this  tribute  to 
his  memory,  and  our  respects  for  the  100th  anniversary  of  his 
birth.  It  is  altogether  fit  and  proper  that  here  and  now  we 
record  our  devotion  to  his  life  and  to  his  public  services. 

Let  me  sketch  a  moment.  This  republic  was  the  child  of 
successful  revolution.  No  one  of  the  thirteen  original  States 
could  have  fought  its  battles  alone.  Independence  for  all 
was  the  necessary  result  of  the  union  of  all. 

The  problems  of  peace  followed  hard  by  on  the  problems 
of  war.      What  British  armies  could  not  do,  the  jealousies  of 


54 

the  states  seemed  about  to  accomplish.  All  saw  that  the 
Union  must  be  made  more  powerful,  more  capable  and  more 
secure,  so  bold  headlands  that  shelter  and  safeguard  the  vital 
elements  of  civil  liberty  were  thrown  up.  Both  public  peace 
and  individual  liberty  were  gathered  in  one  great  charter,  and 
the  United  States  came  upon  the  theatre  of  action  in  the  west- 
ern hemisphere. 

It  was  adopted  by  states.  The  states  were  the  units  of 
creation.  It  was  neither  created  nor  adopted  by  the  people,  en 
masse.  In  the  beginning  all  government  was  in  the  states. 
They  yielded,  by  their  voluntary  action,  certain  of  the  sovereign 
powers  of  government,  to  the  union  formed.  Within  the  scope 
of  those  powers,  there  are  no  state  boundaries,  no  superior 
authority,  no  state's  rights.  There  are  solidarity,  a  single 
people,  and  sovereignty,  to  the  remotest  border  of  the  United 
States  territory. 

The  construction — this  is  for  the  lawyers  I  am  talking  now, 
to  my  professional  brethren,  and  excuse  myself  if  the  others 
do  not  find  it  interesting,  or  do  not  care  to  understand.  The 
construction  of  a  granted  power  ought  to  be  broad  enough  to 
apply  it  to  changed  conditions,  inseparably  connected  with,  and 
a  vital  part  of  subjects  that  lie  within  the  direct  expression  of 
the  text  of  the  granted  power ;  such  conditions,  so  changed, 
being  within  the  spirit,  though  not  within  the  letter  of  the  text. 
It  is  this  liberal  construction  that  gives  a  written  constitution 
the  elasticity  to  respond  to  the  progressive  needs  of  the  age, 
without  either  the  destruction  or  violation  of  its  granted 
powers.  Construction  cannot  write  new  powers  in  that  charter, 
neither  in  the  letter  nor  spirit  of  those  already  there. 

If  we  leave  the  realm  of  enumerated  Federal  powers,  their 
liberal  construction,  and  such  incidental  powers  and  means  as 
are  reasonably  necessary  and  proper  to  the  execution  of  granted 
powers,  all  beyond  this  is  the  exclusive  province  of  the  states 
of  the  Union,  now  48  in  number. 

If  this  domain  beyond  be  entered  by  the  Federal  authority, 
it  must  be  by  constitutional  amendment.  Amendment  cannot 
be  had  by  judicial  decision,  by  executive  action,  nor  by  legis- 
lative enactment.  (Applause.)  Every  such  method  of  amend- 
ment is  not  amendment.  It  is  usurpation.  (Applause.)  The 
mere  power  to  usurp  never  disguises  its  character.  Calling 
anything  16  inches  in  length  when  it  is  only  12,  never  increases 
the  length  of  anything.  Many  persons  are  the  victims  of  defi- 
nition, and  of  a  misunderstanding  of  language,  but  it  never 
changes  the  basic  conditions.  There  is  but  one  way  to  amend. 
It  is  to  follow  the  established  channel,  ordained  by  the  instru- 
ment that  created  the  Union.  No  emergency,  however  great, 
justifies  any  other  course. 

Civil  war  did  not  relax  this  requirement.  The  statesman's 
pen  followed  swiftly  the  warrior's  sword.     No  economic  change 


55 

in  time  of  peace  can  ever  justify  a  usurpation  now.  It  must 
continue,  as  in  the  past,  to  be  a  government  of  law,  and  not  a 
government  of  men.      (Applause.) 

If  it  be  important  enough  to  make  some  ponder  over  the 
propriety  of  using  lawless  ways,  it  is  certainly  important 
enough  to  cause  such  persons  to  utilize  their  energy  to  secure 
amendments  in  law  and  order,  and  thus  they  may  make  friends 
of  those  who  will  surely  oppose  lawless  methods ;  and  the  for- 
mer will  support  civil  Jiberty  rather  than  seek  to  destroy  it. 
The  State — I  am  talking  now  of  our  State,  of  your  State,  if  you 
are  in  a  neighboring  jurisdiction — the  State  is  protected  from 
the  dismemberment  of  its  territory  by  the  charter. 

.No  new  state  can  be  created  within  the  boundaries  of 
any  other  state,  nor  can  a  new  state  be  created  from  the  parts 
of  any  other  state,  unless  by  the  consent — of  whom?  Of  the 
legislature  of  the  state,  always  on  the  idea  that  the  legislature 
of  the  state  will  always  some  time  be  in  session  to  give  its 
approval  or  disapproval  to  the  question. 

Every  state  is  given  two  United  States  Senators.  Some- 
body has  said  you  can  amend  and  take  that  away,  so  that  we 
will  have,  after  a  while  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Oliver  Cromwell, 
a  government  of  the  commonwealth,  by  a  single  house,  and 
that  the  House  of  Commons.  One  of  the  paragraphs  in  a 
section  of  this  charter  says  that  no  amendment  shall  be  had 
to  it  that  will  destroy  the  right  of  the  state  to  equal  suffrage 
in  the  United  States  Senate.  An  amendment  that  did  so, 
while  it  might  be  justified  as  an  act  of  governmental  or  military 
power,  would  of  itself  be  an  act  of  aggression,  and  would  be 
further  a  voluntary  act  of  dissolution  by  the  sovereign  power 
upon  one  of  its  members.  Neither,  therefore,  can  be  taken  from 
the  state  without  its  consent.  Forty-seven  other  states  might 
seek  in  vain  to  despoil  the  48th  state  of  either  of  those  rights. 

It  was  so  in  the  beginning.  It  was  so  when  the  govern- 
ment was  formed.  I  do  not  think  it  indicates  any  degree  of 
progress  whatever  to  attempt  to  turn  a  representative  republic 
of  this  kind  into  a  "tumultuous  town  meeting" — in  the  lan- 
guage of  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  (Applause.)  The  people  of  that 
state  and  its  territory  are  a  unit.  Its  rights  cannot  be  killed 
by  an  epithet.  This  double  sovereignty  puzzles  the  ambassa- 
dors and  representatives  of  other  countries,  sometimes.  It  is 
puzzling  Japan  now.  (Applause.)  The  only  reason  that 
Illinois  is  not  puzzling  this  country  is  because  we  are  two 
thousand  miles  from  the  heaving  tides  of  the  Pacific.  If  Illinois 
lay  along  the  Pacific  Coast,  the  representatives  of  that  ancient 
land  would  be  criticising  the  land  laws  of  Illinois  for  the  last 
eighteen  years,  much  worse  than  they  are  in  California  today. 

In  fact,  the  more  you  study  the  experiences  of  this  State, 
the  more  you  find  that  in  embryo,  and  within  a  smaller  theater 
of  operations,  that  Illinois  in  her  State  government  has  struck 


r. 


6 


almost  every  phase  and  note  of  governmental  power,  and  in 
many  ways  and  cases  she  has  blazed  the  way  and  held  aloft  the 
light  for  other  states  to  act.  The  boundary  between  the  Fed- 
eral authority  and  the  State  authority  is  not  always  plainly 
visible,  but  it  exists,  and  an  examination  always  reveals  the 
line  of  division. 

This  general  outline,  if  you  will  pardon  me,  is  essential 
on  this  anniversary,  to  measure  the  height  and  depth  of 
slavery  and  disunion. 

Property  and  slaves  was  as  ancient  as  human  history. 
From  the  remotest  time,  since  man  has  kept  a  tablet  of  recorded 
events,  it  was  an  institution  among  the  most  ancient  and  the 
most  civilized  of  all  early  nations. 

It  was  recognized  in  the  Union.  Its  existence,  as  a  lawyer 
in  his  written  pleading  would  say,  was  confessed  and  avoided 
All  hoped  and  tacitly  believed  it  would  be  confined  to  certain 
states,  w^hose  climate,  soil  and  production  made  it  profitable. 
Fugitives  escaped  from  bondage  and  fled  to  free  soil.  Their 
recapture  was  difficult.  It  led  to  much  reprisal  and  great 
controversy. 

New  States  knocked  for  admission.  A  struggle  began  to 
make  them  slave  or  free.  When  this  cloud  first  darkened  the 
fitmament,  Stephen  A.  Douglas  appeared  in  the  field  of  Ameri- 
can politics,  with  those  conditions,  and  with  the  legal  status 
of  State  and  Union  as  I  have  briefly  sketched  the  outlines. 

Barriers  had  been  built  up  between  free  soil  and  slavery. 
Compromise  after  compromise  had  stayed  the  gathering  storm. 
The  ordinance  of  1787  had  dedicated  the  great  Northwest  to 
freedom.  The  Dred  Scott  decision,  in  necessary  effect,  said  a 
slave  was  property  and  could  be  taken  to  any  place  within 
the  United  States  and  there  held  in  involuntary  service. 

Against  this  Douglas  invoked  the  doctrine  of  popular  sover- 
eignty, in  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill.  He  proclaimed  the  rights 
of  the  people  in  a  territory  to  decide  for  themselves  whether, 
when  admitted  as  a  State,  it  should  be  slave  or  free.  It  was 
stigmatized  in  ensuing  campaigns  as  squatter  sovereignty. 

Douglas  really  hoped— and  let  us  tonight,  after  the  great 
lapse  of  time,  when  the  passions  have  nearly  all  died  away, 
give  him  credit  for  the  sincerity  of  his  own  thoughts  and 
convictions — Douglas  really  hoped  to  avert  the  irrepressible 
conflict,  and  to  restrain  slavery  by  the  police  regulations  of 
the  several  states  of  the  Union.  On  these  issues  he  met  Lincoln 
in  joint  debate  in  1858.  For  many  months  Illinois  was  the 
forum,  before  a  mighty  jury  of  free  men.  The  verdict  showed 
the  beginning  of  the  end.  No  greater  debate  ever  commanded 
the  attention  of  the  English  speaking  people.  It  was  local  in 
its  area,  but  it  was  national  in  its  issues,  in  its  conclusions  and 
in  the  arguments  employed. 


.)/ 

It  was  the  fate  of  Douglas  to  fail  in  his  great  ambition. 
His  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  sank  in  the  gulf  of  civil  war. 

It  is  singular  at  this  time  to  read  that  those  who  adminis- 
tered Federal  power,  by  construction  and  otherwise,  sent 
slavery  into  the  states  opposed  that  institution.  Such  states 
considered  free  soil  as  their  sovereign  right,  and  so  the  vital 
dispute  was  a  usurpation  then,  as  sometimes  is  sought  to  be  a 
usurpation  now,  of  an  undoubted  right  of  a  local  sovereignty, 
known  as  a  state. 

States'  rights  is  an  unpopular  phrase.  It  is  supposed  to 
have  perished  in  the  blaze  of  a  hundred  hard  fought  fields.  In 
fact,  the  rights,  the  legitimate  rights,  of  the  states  were  pre- 
served on  those  fields,  and  the  change  was  made  by  written 
constitutional  amendment.  They  may  have  first  been  written 
in  the  light  of  the  camp  fire,  circled  with  the  embattled  hosts 
of  the  Union ;  but  they  were  afterwards  gathered  by  the  hand 
of  the  statesman,  and  put  upon  constitutional  parchment,  not 
that  they  were  thereby  sanctified,  but  that  the  evidence  was 
thereby  preserved  of  those  volcanic  passions  which  gave  birth 
to  this  mighty  settlement  of  civil  war.     (Applause.) 

The  vital  principle,  the  same  thing,  w^as  in  Shay's  Insurrec- 
tion, out  in  Western  Pennsylvania,  in  Washington's  adminis- 
tration.  Let  us  be  fair  tonight.  Let  us  tell  the  truth,  not 
part  of  it,  but  as  in  a  court  of  justice,  the  whole  truth,  tonight. 
South  Carolina  and  Mississippi  were  not  the  first  states  that 
talked  secession.  Alabama  was  not  the  first  state  to  talk 
about  a  negro  having  no  rights.  Prudence  Clements,  a  school 
teacher  in  New  England,  was  fined  and  jailed  for  teaching 
negro  children  to  read  and  write.     (Laughter.) 

Now,  that  is  not  told  in  1860.  We  can  tell  it  in  1913. 
(Applause.)  In  New  Hampshire,  ropes  were  put  about  a  school 
house.  Oxen  w^ere  attached  and  they  pulled  it  away,  because 
it  was  a  negro  school  house.  They  quit  that  after  a  while. 
They  grew  more  civilized,  just  as  they  quit  burning  witches 
in  New  Salem.  They  wanted  everybody,  at  one  time,  to  pray 
as  they  did;  but  that  Avas  intolerance  in  matters  of  conscience. 
We  got  away  from  that  years  ago.  Every  church  in  this  re- 
public of  ours  has  left  that  long,  long  ago, .  and  universal 
toleration  is  one  of  the  cornerstones  of  this  republic  (Ap- 
plause), and  we  are  nearer  God  tonight  than  we  ever  were  be- 
fore, because  of  it.      (Applause.) 

You  have  read  of  the  Hartford  convention — you  men  of 
my  age  have.  What  was  it?  The  seaports  along  in  the  codfish 
country  (Laughter)  did  much  foreign  commerce,  and  the  Em- 
bargo Act,  that  prohibited  foreign  trade,  interfered  with  the 
profits  thereof;  and  the  convention  was  held. 

The  impartial  historian,  Mr.  Dwight,  who  palliates  the 
offense  as  much  as  possible,  yet  files  what  I  meant  a  while  ago, 


58 

as  a  plea  of  confession  and  avoidance.  He  confesses  there  was 
a  great  deal  of  what  we  called,  in  1861,  "treason,"  talked  in 
that  convention.  They  talked  in  resounding  terms  of  the 
Kentucky  and  Virginia  resolution. 

You  have  forgotten  that  in  my  native  state  of  Ohio,  the 
Legislature  once  passed  secession  resolutions.  (Laughter  and 
applause.)  They  did  not  really  secede  from  the  Union,  but 
they  were  very  mad  about  it.  They  attacked  a  branch  of  the 
United  States  bank,  and  they  sent  in  a  state  officer  with  a 
writ  who  levied  on  a  quantity  of  money  in  the  vaults  of  the 
bank — when  the  Federal  courts  decided  that  the  bank  was  not 
subject  to  state  taxation,  being  a  branch  of  the  Federal  gov- 
ernment, and  its  instrumentalities  being  exempt  from  taxation. 
AVhen  the  state  officers  persevered,  the  Federal  authorities 
immediately  began  contempt  proceedings  and  finally  the  state 
officers  abandoned  the  undertaking. 

It  was  then,  as  usual,  in  cases  we  know  of  that  kind — 
thej^  carried  their  grievance  to  the  Legislature.  It  is  a  general 
receptacle  for  all  the  governmental  kicks  of  everybody. 
(Laughter  and  applause.) 

They  proceeded  in  due  form  to  pass  resolutions  which  are 
almost,  in  substance,  the  same  as  the  Kentucky  and  Virginia 
resolutions.  For  the  Kentucky  and  Virginia  resolutions  there 
is  no  excuse  at  this  time.  They  plainly  declared  the  superiority 
of  the  state,  in  matters  of  controversy,  over  the  powers  of  the 
Federal  government. 

Slavery  used  those  powers  to  justify  disunion,  but  that 
doctrine  is  the  one  that  perished  in  the  Civil  War,  not  the 
legitimate  powers  of  the  states,  that  have  never  been  granted 
away.  Stripped  bare  of  all  obscuring  incidents,  it  was  law- 
lessness. Disunion  was  disintegration,  and  the  dissolution  of 
the  bonds  of  civil  government. 

With  this  brief  sketch  that  I  regard  as  essential  to  under- 
stand the  character  of  Douglas,  let  us  stop.  Here  let  us  pause 
before  Douglas  the  American.  Under  the  pitiless  discipline 
of  defeat,  he  rose  to  the  sublime  height  where  only  patriots 
walk.  (Applause.)  When  the  flag  was  lowered  at  Sumter, 
Douglas  became  the  first  and  the  greatest  of  war  Democrats. 
(Applause.)  He  pledged  his  help  to  Lincoln,  to  maintain  the 
Union,  and  he  nobly  redeemed  his  promise.  (Applause.)  He 
saw  armed  rebellion  lift  its  hand  against  a  people's  government. 
The  gathering  squadrons  of  disunion  hurried  to  the  fields  of 
the  Civil  War ;  but  amid  the  confusion  his  voice  always  rang 
true.  "There  are  no  neutrals  in  this  country.  There  are  none 
but  patriots  and  traitors."  The  words  printed  on  your  pro- 
gram are  the  words  that,  if  any  great  dome  should  be  erected  to 
his  memory,  in  marble  and  bronze,  ought  to  be  cut  on  its  base — 


59 

these  words  that  are  the  words  of  one  who  believed  in  this 
Union  and  believed  it  was  worth  saving,  as  it  then  was. 
(Applause.)  •> 

Ou  June  3,  1861,  he  died,  young  in  years,  but  fruitful 
in  results.  His  battle  cry  sounded  from  the  grave.  The  spirit 
of  Douglas  rose,  above  the  storm  of  civil  war,  from  Sumter 
to  Appomattox.  The  men  who  followed  him  in  campaign,  met 
treason  on  a  hundred  fields.  They  gave  proof  of  their  devo- 
tion, as  men  \\  ho  loved  the  Ihiion,  by  the  sacrifice  of  their 
lives. 

There  was  no  party  in  the  service  that  Douglas  gave,  in 
the  last  remnants  of  his  broken  life.  (Applause.)  In  the  last 
supreme  test  his  heroic  figure,  in  Illinois,  must  rise  alongside 
of  the  memory  of  Lincoln.  (Applause.)  He  Avas  rightfully 
called  the  "Little  Giant." 

Born  in  obscurity,  and  bred  in  poverty,  with  head  and 
hand  and  heart  imbued  with  valor  and  devotion,  he  lived  to  see 
the  time  when  he  was  the  leader  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
men  who  trusted  implicitly  his  judgment,  his  honor,  his  wisdom, 
his  courage.  To  his  great  rival,  in  the  day  of  defeat,  he  gave 
1he  full  measure  of  his  devotion.  He  was  great  in  life,  but  he 
was  unspeakably  greater  in  his  death.     (Applause.) 

Let  me  read  what  he  said,  and  with  this  I  conclude :  "The 
right  and  province  of  expounding  the  Constitution,  and  con- 
struing the  laAV.  is  vested  in  the  judiciary  established  by  the 
Constitution."  We  all  believe  that.  We  all  believe  it  ought 
to  be. 

"As  a  lawyer"  (continuing)  "I  feel  at  liberty  to  appear 
before  the  court  and  controvert  any  principle  of  law,  while  the 
question  is  pending  before  the  tribunal ;  but  when  the  decision 
is  made,  my  private  opinion,  and  your  private  opinion,  and 
all  other  opinions,  must  yield  to  the  majesty  of  the  authorita- 
tive decisions  of  the  courts.  (Applause.)  I  wish  you  to  bear 
in  mind  that  this  involves  a  great  principle,  upon  which  our 
rights  and  our  liberty  and  our  property  all  depend.  What 
.security  have  you.  for  your  property,  for  your  reputation,  for 
your  personal  rights,  if  the  courts  are  not  upheld,  and  their 
decisions  respected,  when  once  formally  rendered  by  the  highest 
tribunal?  I  do  not  choose,  therefore,  to  go  into  any  argument 
on  this  question.  I  have  no  idea  of  appealing  from  a  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  upon  a  constitutional  question,  to  the 
decision  of  a  tumultuous  town  meeting."     (Applause.) 

That  was  Douglas!  That  was  not  Douglas  alone.  It  was, 
though  falling  from  his  lips,  the  embodied  genius  and  power 
and  philosophy  of  this  American  republic.  He  was  only  the 
poor  instrument,  as  he  said,  falling  from  his  lips  in  the  fleeing 
moment  the  things  that  were  necessary  for  the  endurance  of 
civilized  government. 


GO 

I  came  here  readily  and  willingly.  I  came  on  the  request 
of  those  who  had  charge  of  this  anniversary.  I  would  wil- 
lingly have  traveled  three  times  one  thousand  miles  to  have 
recorded,  publicly,  my  admiration,  and  to  do  justice  to  the 
memory,  not  of  this  great  Democrat,  but  of  this  great  American 
citizen.     (Prolonged  applause.) 

Governor  Dunne  : — And  I  now  take  pleasure,  my  friends, 
in  introducing  the  last  speaker,  the  great  tribune  of  Democracy, 
the  man  upon  whose  shoulders  has  fallen  the  oratorical  gift  of 
Douglas  in  his  day,  and  Altgeld,  in  his — James  Hamilton  Lewis, 
United  States  Senator.     (Prolonged  applause.) 

Senator  James  Hamilton  Lewis 

Governor  Dunne,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  of  this  Assemblage: 

It  is  always  a  source  of  gratification  for  a  man  to  receive 
praise  from  any  one.  When  his  known  bosom  and  confidential 
friend  finds  it  agreeable  to  pay  him  a  tribute,  it  may  be  expected 
that  that  tribute  will  oft-times  be  as  exaggerated  as  the  con- 
fidence and  affection.  It  is  to  that  you  must  ascribe  the  very 
glowing  enconium  I  have  just  received  at  the  hands  of  your 
presiding  officer. 

I  join  with  my  distinguished  colleague  in  the  expression  of 
great  satisfaction  that  this  occasion  gives  an  opportunity  to 
address  the  Legislature  and  its  guests.  Conditions  which  shall 
eventually,  and  probably  shortly,  encompass  the  official  life 
of  both  of  us,  will  hardly  render  probable  our  frequent  return, 
to  be  honored  with  your  patient  and  flattering  attentions. 

I  would  have  come  to  this  gathering,  if  there  had  been  no 
other  object  than  to  have  done  myself  the  service  of  a  renewed 
association  with  a  body  of  men  to  whom  I  still  feel  a  sense  of 
defined  obligation,  and  who,  when  they  have  separated,  from 
these  official  duties,  to  return  to  their  several  callings,  in  their 
respective  homes,  I  will  have  too  little  opportunity  to  per- 
sonally greet  and  personally  know,  as  I  would  love  to,  as  friend 
and  friend. 

I  pray  that  I  may  be  pardoned  for  speaking  for  my  dis- 
tinguished colleague  and  myself,  without  any  regard  to  those 
appellations  which  distinguish  the  names  of  the  parties 
to  which  we  are  allied,  if  I  beg  to  say  that  every  member  of 
this  honorable  body  would  do  us  both  a  great  compliment, 
from  time  to  time,  as  they  may  be  inspired  from  the  necessities 
of  themselves,  or  the  demands  of  their  constituents,  should  they 
let  such  wants  be  known  to  us,  as  their  public  representa- 
tives, that  in  that  way,  if  no  other,  we  may  not  altogether  be 
divided  in  our  official  duties  any  great  distance  apart. 

Gentlemen  of  this  committee,  who  have  organized  this 
occasion,  I  extend  to  you,  as  an  American  citizen,  my  sincere 


Senator  James  Hamilton  Lewis 


t?) 


appreciation,  and  express  to  you  the  just  praise  tiiat  is  due  you. 
The  people  of  Illinois,  in  continuing  the  memory  of  her  great 
sons,  and  perpetuating  them  before  the  country  are  reviving 
the  virtues  which  citizenship  loves  to  recall.  Thus  Ave  pay  a 
tribute  to  the  illustrious  dead. 

You  may  be  unconscious,  gentlemen  of  this  Legislature, 
of  the  extent  to  which  this  service  will  go,  in  its  influence  upon 
the  people  of  our  day ;  but  there  is  no  man  who  sits  here  to- 
night, if  he  have  but  the  reflection  of  the  citizen,  who  will 
under-estimate  the  splendid  inspiration  to  the  youth  of  this 
day  that  these  celebrations,  on  the  12th  of  February  and  on 
the  23d  of  April,  to  two  distinguished  gentlemen  of  Illinois, 
Avill  awaken  to  the  youth  of  the  nation ! 

Young  men  who  are  in  the  colleges  in  Illinoisi,  animated 
with  noble  aspirations,  boys  in  the  common  schools  who  have 
been  inspired  by  a  father's  hope  and  a  mother's  prayer,  seeking 
elevation  in  themselves,  Avill  often  times  be  confronted  with  the 
knowledge  oi  these  celebrations,  by  which  you  have  paid  trib- 
ute to  greatness,  but  more  to  virtue.  To  these  it  will  be  an 
encouragement,  and  to  those  young  lives  a  great  encouragement 
in  their  undertaking ;  and  because  of  that,  if  there  be  no  other 
form  of  compensations  you  are,  believe  me,  much  rewarded  for 
the  time  that  you  give  from  your  public  undertakings,  to 
celebrations  of  this  order ! 

How  true  it  is,  as  Douglas  said,  in  his  opening  great 
speech  in  the  lower  House  of  Congress,  in  the  defense  of  Andrew 
Jackson,  that  the  reputation  of  a  country's  great  man  is  its 
property  and  one  in  which  it  should  take  pride(.  and  cherish 
with  praise,  and  defend  against  defamation ! 

All  lovers  of  beautiful  expression  are  gladdened,  when 
entering  the  classic  city  of  Athens,  to  find  inscribed  on  what 
is  known  as  the  seventh  j^illar  of  that  splendid  outer  gate,  the 
great  truth  of  Pericles,  proclaiming  that  "A  land  without 
heroes  is  a  country  without  history!"  You  meet  tonight,  and 
these  gentlemen  who  have  honored  us  by  their  presence  from 
abroad,  mingle  with  you,  to  pay  that  just  tribute  to  the  per- 
sonality of  American  citizenship. 

It  is  not  my  purpose,  gentlemen,  to  enter  into  a  history  of 
the  life  and  career  of  the  distinguished  disciple  of  this  occasion. 
To  do  so  would  not  only  be  superfluous,  but  I  fear  it  would  mar 
that  which  had  gone  before  me. 

We  recall  the  incident  related  in  Constant's  Memoirs  of 
Napoleon,  that  took  place  just  at  the  time  when  the  conquering 
Napoleon  was  about  to  ascend  the  Alps.  Berthier,  his  friend, 
and  the  commanding  general  of  one  of  his  corps,  turned  and 
said:  "Sire,  we  are  about  to  cross  the  Alps;  what  will  history 
say?"  Napoleon  responded:  "It  will  say  that  Hannibal 
crossed  it  before  us."     So,  anything  I  may  add  to  this  oc- 


63 

casion  must  be  responded  to  in  the  just  tribute,  that  Hannibal 
has  crossed  it  before  me.  (Bowing  to  Senator  Sherman.) 
(Prolonged  applause.) 

I  am  content  if  this  occasion  will  allow  me,  with  some 
degree  of  audacity,  to  intrude  some  interpretation  upon  the 
splendid  speech  of  my  distinguished  colleague. 

I  prefer,  upon  this  occasion,  when  I  note  and  recall  the 
addresses  which  have  been  delivered  by  the  distinguished  son 
of  his  more  distinguished  sires,  and  the  distinguished  Senator 
from  Missouri,  and  others  Avho  are  our  guests,  if  I  may  be 
permitted  to  mark  in  some  cogent  form — without  more  pretense 
than  mere  conversation,  what  was  the  real  meaning  of  the  things 
for  which  Mr.  Douglas  stood. 

Rather  than  to  trace  his  life,  I  prefer  as  one  who  scans 
some  circle  of  mountains,  to  behold  the  promontories,  and, 
noting  them,  jutting  high  into  the  sky,  stand  as  one  who  views 
their  eminence,  and  point  to  their  splendid  elevation,  and  by 
these  to  have  you  judge  the  array,  content  that  there  will  be  no 
injustice.  What  were  the  particular  things  for  which  this  man 
lived  ? 

When  Emerson  was  asked  if  his  famous  expression — that 
great  events  gave  life  to  great  men — were  intended  to  mean 
that  great  men  only  became  great  as  the  birth  of  a  great  event, 
he  responded:  "No;  I  meant  that  which  all  men  understand, 
that  it  is  the  things  for  Avhich  men  live,  and  the  great  events 
to  Avhich  their  lives  aspire,  which  make  them  great." 

Then  let  me  say  to  my  friend.  Judge  Sherman,  taking  his 
splendid  speech  as  my  text:  There  was,  in  Mr.  Douglas'  atti- 
tude, much  misunderstanding  in  the  day  of  the  deliverance,  as 
there  has  been,  since  then,  much  confusion  in  the  object  which 
he  sought. 

True,  as  Judge  Sherman  says,  the  very  expression,  "States' 
rights"  were  upheld,  at  that  time,  by  very  eminent  and  capable 
men,  as  expressions  of  ignominy  and  odium — understood  by 
many  as  carrying  with  it  the  intimation  that  the  State  assumed 
to  have  a  right  superior  to  tliat  of  the  nation,  and,  under  this 
right  to  exercise  a  sovereignty  that  enabled  it  to  depart  from 
its  mother  country,  and  to  sever  the  obligation  that  held  it  in 
Union.  The  expression,  "States'  rights,"  was  too  often  con- 
strued to  arrogate  a  principle  of  sovereignty  over  the  federal 
union  in  matters  of  conflict  between  the  state  and  the  nation 
in  affairs  purely  national.  But  I  may  add  that  it  has  ever  been 
the  curse  of  all  political  philosophy,  and  all  of  religious  science, 
that  the  mere  designation  of  terms  has  been  permitted  to  con- 
fuse ideas  and  to  destroy  ideals. 

1  may  remind  my  distinguished  friend,  who  just  preceded 
me^  that  ]\Ir.  Draper,  in  his  Intellectual  Development,  has  ex- 
pressed a  thought  well  calculated  to  cause  men  to  ponder,  when 


64 

he  asserts  that  single  expressions,  some  times  of  opprobrium,  or 
of  praise,  have  been  known  to  destroy  the  germ  of  ideas  and 
ideals. 

How  well  do  we  recall,  this  night,  that  the  mere  designa- 
tion of  a  term  was  used  to  prevent  the  great  Christian  religion 
from  imparting  its  blessings  to  mankind,  and  hallowing  its 
sanctity  over  the  civilization  of  the  earth,  for  twenty-eight 
years.  How  we  remember  that  the  Great  Man  came,  seeking 
to  disseminate  the  message  of  His  life,  the  strength  and  sweet- 
ness of  His  love,  and  was  asked  "whence  came  He  from."  Avith 
the  answer  "Nazareth;"  and  the  other  responded,  "Can  any 
good  come  out  of  Nazareth?"  It  was  enough  that  He  was 
called  a  Nazareue. 

In  those  days,  to  which  these  speeches  have  alluded,  it 
would  seem  to  be  sufficient  that  a  man  should  be  merely  called 
by  the  name  "Democrat"  or  be  known  as  one  designated  an 
adherent  of  that  theory  denominated  "States'  rights." 

What  really  was  the  meaning,  gentlemen,  of  this  modern 
day,  and  of  that? 

Well  indeed  might  I  enjoy,  with  these  gentlemen  who  have 
preceded  me,  the  consolation  that  this  is  the  hour,  when  there 
are  no  lashings  of  invective,  no  tierce  partisan  ties,  when  there 
are  no  bitter  hatreds,  arrayed  on  one  side  against  the  other,— 
preventing  mankind  from  beholding  the  splendid  achievements 
of  their  fellow  Americans.  Honor  may  write  with  an  indelible 
hand  the  tribute  that  is  due  them,  and  with  justice  proclaim, 
when  need  be,  the  wrong  committed  against  them. 

What,  therefore,  was  really  meant  by  the  attitude  of 
Douglas?  To  use  the  words  of  Emerson,  "What  was  the 
height  to  which  he  sought  to  attain,  and  the  thing  eminent  for 
which  he  lived  to  secure?" 

Let  us  pause  for  a  moment,  and  indulge  this  thought ;  that 
there  never  was  a  time  in  civilization,  which  has  found  a  record 
in  history,  when  there  was  not  a  jealous  care  on  the  part  of  the 
citizenship  for  something  of  the  sovereign  inherent  in  humanity, 
and  which  ever  suggested  to  the  self  that  it  was  king  within 
itself,  within  its  own  sphere. 

The  sovereignty  of  man  was  ever  the  eternal  demand  of  the 
citizen,  and  to  this  dav  a  man  Avill  resent,  however  much  be- 
loving  he  may  feel  towards  a  neighbor,  the  assumption  on  his 
part  to  direct  him  in  the  purely  private  affairs  of  his  own  life, 
man,  feeling  the  sovereignty  of  self,  will  demand  that  he  be 
permitted,  as  a  man,  to  express  his  own  views,  and  execute 
them,  by  virtue  of  the  inherent  sovereignty  implanted  of  God, 
and  feeling  within  himself  all  his  inheritance  from  his  fathers. 

This,  in  its  multiplications,  finds  its  way  to  the  very  small- 
est political  geography.  The  very  ward  in  a  city  will  resent  the 
interference  or  invasion  of  the  neighboring    ward;  and    the 


65 

district  will  likewise  resent  aud  avenge  the  intrusion  of  the 
neighboring  district,  however  much  in  common  their  rights  or 
their  desires  may  be;  and  well  do  you  know  that  a  city  will 
fight  to  the  death  of  achievement  of  an  undertaking 
rather  than  to  have  a  rival  community  assume  to  speak  to  it  in 
the  language  of  domination  or  direction.  Why?  Because 
these  are  but  the  combination  and  the  collection  of  the  unit 
individual,  expressing,  in  the  combination  and  the  collection, 
the  sentiment  of  the  man.  Thus  we  iind  the  political  division 
of  the  State,  and  after  all,  see  nothing  more  than  that  political 
unit  expressing  the  ideal  of  the  man,  demanding  that  in  itself, 
and  for  itself,  in  all  matters  which  touch  itself,  it  should  be 
sovereign.  And  in  the  word  "sovereign"  there  was  no  intent, 
on  the  part  of  students  of  the  Constitution,  for  a  state  to  assume 
a  sovereignty  above  and  superior  to  the  national  government, 
in  matters  in  which  the  national  government  had  been  ordained 
by  the  fathers  to  be  sovereign.  The  State  was  to  be  sover- 
eign in  all  of  those  matters  in  which  the  individual  purely  local 
must  necessarily  be,  in  order  that  he  might  control  his  own 
affairs  and  be  the  master  of  his  own  private  destinies  in  home 
and  household. 

How  natural,  therefore,  for  Mr.  Douglas  that  these  views 
should  have  been  felt  in  the  day  in  which  he  lived,  and  ex- 
pressed in  the  hour  in  which  he  moved. 

It  was  born,  gentlemen,  of  inheritance.  The  tribes  of 
Israel,  as  shown  by  the  earliest  record  we  have  of  a  form  of 
government,  were  so  completely  for  individual  sovereignty 
within  themselves,  that  marriages  intermingling  betAveen  the 
tribes  were  regarded  as  a  violation  of  the  sovereignty,  and  met 
with  punishment ;  even  the  fear  of  death,  as  the  result  of  this 
violation. 

When  the  Grecian  states  came  together,  and  formed  the 
alliance  known  as  the  Achaean  League,  it  was  a  serious  question 
as  to  how  far  the  league  could  go.  When  some  of  our  fore- 
fathers sought  to  model  a  form  for  the  early  foundation  of 
this  government,  based  largely  upon  the  Amphictyonie  League, 
it  was  debated  among  them  as  to  how  far  the  right  of  the 
individual  should  extend,  to  contend  for  his  rights  according 
to  its  ancient  sovereignty,  as  it  had  enjoyed  them. 

The  very  first  effort  that  had  been  made  on  the  part  of  one 
of  the  states  to  control  the  city  of  Sparta,  and  to  dominate 
Athens  and  Corinth,  resulted  in  the  Achaean  League  becoming 
severed  apart,  as  you  know  from  history. 

It  was  not  at  all  unnatural,  therefore,  that  when  this  gov- 
ernment was  formed,  with  these  lessons  before  our  forefathers, 
there  should  have  been  formed  what  Judge  Sherman  aptly 
termed  the  mysterious  combination  of  government,  suggested 
in  order  to  guard  against  these  very  occasions  when  govern- 
ments, encountering  such  obstructions,  had  gone  to  fragments 
and  to  pieces. 

5- 


66 

Douglas  came  from  New  England,  in  the  very  home  of 
that  which  is  designated  as  the  "town  meeting."  AA^hen  the 
fathers  of  the  Constitution,  so  far  as  New  England  was  con- 
cerned, framed  a  form  of  government,  there  in  that  land  of 
the  Puritan,  one  of  the  very  first  considerations  was  the  desig- 
nation of  the  town  government,  separate  and  distinct  from  any 
other  governmental  entity,  preserving  as  far  as  such  could  be 
maintained,  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  in  the  control  and  man- 
agement of  all  of  their  local  concerns,  and  resenting  to  the 
uttermost  the  interference,  or  intrusion,  by  any  authority  upon 
this  privilege  sacred  to  them.  That  Judge  Douglas  could  have 
found  his  Avay  in  Illinois  without  bringing,  as  a  result  of  these 
inheritances,  those  same  convictions  would  have  been  as  strange 
as  you  observe  would  have  been  impossible. 

The  ancient  foundations  of  the  government  were  trans- 
mitted by  the  fathers  who  laid  o'urs, — and  all  these  sons  of 
New  England,  who  came  west|.  have  brought  this  principle  as 
clearly  unconscious  within  their  own  lives  as  were  the  convic- 
tions of  personal  liberty.  Then  let  us  understand — 
what  was  the  thing  he  fought  for?  Let  no  man,  at  this  date, 
■confuse  the  real  principle  at  stake.  His  idea,  gentlemen  of 
the  Illinois  Legislature,  was  merely  to  execute  those  doctrines 
of  government  which  in  the  past  have  alone  proven  to  be  per- 
manent in  the  enjoyment  of  man,  and  without  which  by  test 
have  invariably  demonstrated  weakness,  and  under  any  trial 
-or  test  have  severed  Government  into  distractions. 

There  has  ever  been,  as  there  ever  will  be,  the  school,  among 
intelligent  men,  of  great  division  and  contest  as  to  whether 
concentrated  government,  centralized  under  one  great  head, 
taking  their  dictation  from  any  voice  that  may  rule  at  that 
place,  was  the  better ;  or  that  other  form  of  government  where 
each  local  order  is  sovereign  in  itself,  touching  its  own  affairs, 
and  enjoying  its  relations  and  existence  directly  from  the 
mouths  of  the  citizens,  each  with  the  ballot  in  his  hand. 

We  pause  to  reflect  a  moment,  what  has  transpired  in  the 
world  around  us?  England  assumed  that  she  could  imperial- 
ize  her  government,  and  keep  something  of  the  aristocratic  form 
of  Russia,  on  the  theory  this  would  be  best  if  she  could  do  it 
on  the  order  of  the  ancient  Roman  Empire  system. 

This  passed  for  some  years  unheeded,  because  England,  not 
having  space  enough,  or  rather,  having  space  so  large  as  to 
be  able  to  accommodate  all  her  citizenship,  there  did  not  arise, 
-or  it  was  not  necessary  to  awaken,  a  conflict  between  the  citi- 
zenship, because  within  his  sphere  the  citizen  felt  content. 

But  as  the  days  came  and  went  the  space  became  filled  and 
the  citizen  began  to  realize  that  upon  the  dictates  of  a  crown 
far  removed  from  him  he  received  the  orders  of  his  existence, 
he  began  to  rebel,  feeling  himself  less  than  a  man,  when  ordered 
like  a  servant,  and  when  existing  like  a  subject. 


67 

Scotland  was  brought  under  the  yoke  of  England,  and  then 
Ireland  was  forced  under  domination.  Wales  surrendered  to 
the  same  powerful  force,  and  then  was  created  before  the  eyes 
of  the  world,  the  British  Empire. 

Then,  for  the  first  time,  was  presented  to  England  that 
problem  which  before  then  her  sons  had  warned  her  would 
arise, — that  inability  to  control  the  citizen  in  the  manner  by 
which  his  citizenship  would  remain  loyal,  when  controlled  at 
a  distance,  through  the  existence  of  sub-agencies,  which  he  had 
no  voice  in  the  forming,  directly,  of  the  government  under 
which  he  lived. 

Mr.  Buckle,  in  his  splendid  work  on  the  History  of  Civil- 
ization, calls  attention  to  the  peculiar  condition  in  which  Eng- 
land is  now. 

Said  he,  "She  has  awakened  to  the  realization  that  could 
she  have  maintained  herself  in  the  condition  of  the  ancient 
Grecian  states,  by  which  each  of  her  own  governments,  in  their 
divisions,  could  have  been  local,  and  in  their  locality  permit 
the  citizen  to  be  sovereign  to  himself,  he  would  have  a 
pride  in  his  community,  he  would  have  felt  a  delight  in  his 
creation,  he  would  have  realized  it  was  the  product  of  his  own 
hand ;  he  would  not  be,,  as  he  is  now,  feeling  himself  the  mere 
creature  and  the  mere  victim  of  royal  nile  at  a  distance,  won- 
dering if  he  is  to  be  kept  in  this  condition  of  subserviency,  and 
questioning  whether  his  future  is  to  be  one  of  citizenship  or 
one  of  subject." 

Archibald  Allison,  writing  in  1844,  from  Glasgow  (strongly 
as  he  had  advocated  the  system  of  centralized  government),  of 
the  time  when  England  had  succeeded  in  bringing  together 
the  centralization,  to  which  I  have  alluded, — this  distinguished 
essayist  and  historian,  as  time  went  on,  is  found  admitting, 
afterward,  the  wrong  of  his  theory,  the  injustice  of  the  doctrine, 
and  the  persecution  of  its  effect,  saying :  "It  were  better,  now, 
that  we  view  the  Italian  government  first.  There  was 
Florence,  there  was  Venice,  and  there,  above  all,  was 
her  splendid  individuality,  that  made  her  great  before 
the  world,  and  magnificent  before  creation.  Copying  after 
the  model  of  England,  she  proceeded  to  centralize  her  govern- 
ment, and  by  the  process  of  centralization  lost  the  individuality 
of  the  Italian  states.  Behold  her  now !  Every  division  warring 
against  the  other,  each  feeling  it  has  been  imposed  upon,  and 
denied  its  local  rights,  no  particular  continuity,  no  general  sys- 
tem of  adoration  of  the  institutions  of  the  past,  and  no  respect 
for  the  authority  of  the  present.  The  Italian  states  now  con- 
front-usi,  as  England  produces  to  the  eye  of  the  world  the  situa- 
tion of  a  country  in  a  state  of  discordance,  only  abiding  the  time 
when  the  citizen  at  home  will  feel  it  is  not  his  government,  be- 
cause the  ruling  powers  are  as  foreign  to  him  as  if  he  were 


68 

in  another  land;  and  on  the  very  first  occasion  he  will  rise 
either  in  revolt  against  civil  authority,  or  insurrection  against 
the  military." 

In  Mr.  Douglas'  mind,  unquestionably  shown,  was  this  very 
danger,  which  he  sought  to  avoid, — in  behalf  of  his  country. 

Let  us  understand  very  clearly,  and  let  me  rejoin  to  my 
dear  friend.  Judge  Sherman,  that  when  Mr.  Douglas  opposed 
the  idea  that  slavery  should  enter  either  into  Kansas  or  Ne- 
braska, without  the  consent  of  those  local  sovereignties,  it  was 
not  because  it  was  slavery,  it  was  because  his  ideal,  as  a  citizen, 
of  his  American  institutions,  was  that  nothing  should  be  per- 
mitted to  enter  into  a  sovereign  state,  touching  its  purely  local 
concerns,  without  the  consent  of  its  people.   (Applause.) 

So  marked  was  this  that  when  California  was  presented  to 
the  Union,  and  there  was  an  effort  by  Senator  Cass,  of  Michigan, 
demanding  that  California,  before  coming  into  the  Union, 
should  first  surrender  and  yield  her  public  lands  to  the  Union, 
Mr.  Douglas  there  opposed  it,  upon  the  ground  that  that 
which  was  within  the  sovereign  limits  of  California  was  the 
property  of  the  state,  that  her  people  have  the  right  to  its  enjoy- 
ment, and  it  should  not  be  within  the  power  of  the  Union  to 
invade  these  sacred  precincts  and  dominate  those  people  at  a 
distance ;  and  take  that  from  them  which  was  their  right  by 
their   owti   sovereign   creation.      (Applause.) 

It  was  the  rule  of  the  land.  It  was  not  slavery.  It  was 
the  adherence  to  the  principles  of  self-government  which  have 
ever  animated  civilization  to  its  very  highest  apex,  wherever 
civilization  has  attained  the  altitude  of  perfection.  True,  as  my 
friend,  Judge  Sherman  says.  Judge  Douglas,  himself,  was  mis- 
understood. He  Avas  charged,  as  the  gentleman  well  said  here 
today,  as  a  traitor — ^Mr.  Lincoln  likewise — but  then  they  were 
the  sad  yesterdays,  glorious  in  their  achievement,  but  to  be  re- 
gretted in  some  of  their  incidents. 

But  we  pause  to  realize,  tonight,  that  we  do  not  repeat 
the  injustice  of  the  yesterdays,  to  do  justice  for  today.  We 
pause  to  note  the  principle  involved,  and  we  now,  tonight,  see 

its  justification. 

My  friend.  Judge  Sherman,  says,  and  rightfully — I  felici- 
tate him  in  his  splendid  expression — that  the  right  of  the  states, 
in  so  far  as  the  Constitution  has  provided,  shall  remain  and  be 
as  an  integral  form  of  this  government ;  and  that  the  question 
of  the  rights  of  the  states  should  not  be  doubted,  in  so  far  as 
those  rights  are  distinctly  the  rights  of  the  sovereignty. 

But,  mv  fellow  citizens  of  Illinois,  what  availed  this  dis- 
tinction  on  the  part  of  my  friend?  What  availed  the  splendid 
admission  at  this  time,  of  this  scholar  of  government,  if  there 
be  agencies  around  this  republic  who  bide  their  time,  upon 
every  occasion  to  avoid  them  on  the  one  hand,   and  destroy 


69 

them  on  the  other?  If  there  shall  be  creations  of  this  govern- 
iiu'Ut,  called  Federal  agencies,  of  one  form  or  another,  that 
from  time  to  time  may  be  invoked  for  the  destruction  of  all 
forms  of  local  government,  at  the  behest  of  those  who  may- 
profit  by  the  invasion,  -where  is  local  sovereignty? 

Note  what  is  transpiring  around  us  here  today,  as  I  am  hon- 
ored by  this  audience.  There  is  the  sovereign  state  of  Min- 
nesota. I  summon  the  shade  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  that  he 
may  note  the  fruits  of  the  thing  against  which  he  fought.  Min- 
nesota was  a  Union  State.  A  splendid  soldiery  had  done  credit 
to  the  Union,  and  glory  to  the  cause.  She  was  Republican, 
in  politics,  as  the  designation  is  known,  and  when,  first,  with 
the  war  on  the  Democracy  as  it  was  termed,  then  the  war  on 
the  opprobrious  "States'  rights,"  as  it  was  termed  and  desig- 
nated, the  theory  grew  and  fattened,  truly  as  the  poet  has  de- 
fined, until  we  beheld  that  when  Minnesota,  in  her  sovereign 
capacity,  passed  through  her  legislature  the  laws  for  the  proper 
control  of  great  public  service  institutions  her  railroads,  and 
prescribed  their  rights,  touching  these  questions,  it  was  for  an 
attorney  general  of  the  United  States  of  America,  in  the  per- 
formance of  his  office,  through  the  Supreme  Federal  Court,  in 
obedience  to  the  local  Federal  courts  of  the  nation,  to  enjoin  the 
attorney  general  of  the  State  of  Minnesota,  elected  by  the  peo- 
ple, from  executing  the  sovereign  laws  passed  by  the  legisla- 
ture of  the  sovereign  state,  R('publiean  in  polities,  of  ^Minnesota. 
(Applause.)  Can  you  wonder  that  there  would  have  arisen 
some  revolt  in  great  Minnesota,  against  this  invasion  of  local 
home  rule? 

Immediately  following,  Nebraska,  Avhich  similarly  passed 
laws  respecting  the  control  of  its  local  institutions,  in  the  matter 
of  freight  rates,  and  the  control  of  the  destinies  of  her  local 
commerce,  was  similarly  treated  by  the  same  form  of  invasion. 
Oklahoma,  Democratic;  Alabama,  Democratic;  Kansas,  mixed 
and  divided  in  her  respective  political  allegiances,  met  similar 
treatment.  Kansas  was  enjoined  by  the  Federal  government 
from  executing  her  law  of  ])ank  guaranty.  Alabama  was  en- 
joined, in  the  Federal  courts,  from  executing  her  law  touching 
the  mere  rate  of  passenger  fare  upon  railroads. 

Your  neighboring  states  of  Kansas  and  Oklahoma  both 
were  enjoined  by  Federal  tribunals  from  executing  their  local 
legislation  touching  mere  matters  of  local  control ;  these  being 
passed  by  the  sovereign  legislature,  in  all  branches  of  the  sev- 
eral states. 

Do  you  marvel,  gentlemen  of  Illinois,  that  this  morning, 
and  yesterday,  you  read  in  your  daily  newspapers  how  twelve 
states,  five  of  the  states  being  Democratic,  and  seven  being 
Republican,  have  moved  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States — that  great,  eminent  tribunal — that  they  be  given,  an 
opportunity  to  be  heard,  against  the  further  invasion  on  the 


70 

part  of  the  United  States  over  the  local  authority,  and  the  just 
limitation  of  the  states  in  the  control  of  their  purely  local  mat- 
ters, and  their  sovereign  rights!     (Applause.) 

Do  you  fancy  that  Mr.  Stephen  A.  Douglas  did  not,  in  his 
splendid  prophetic  vision,  behold  the  ultimate  growth  of  this 
feeling,  and  the  wrong  upon  home  rule  and  local  self-govern- 
ment, if  the  aberration  of  gentlemen  who  misunderstood  him 
should  longer  obtain  without  some  protest  from  some  great  and 
strong  source?  Senator  "Wade,  standing  from  Ohio,  turned  to 
Mr.  Douglas,  as  he  did  to  others,  and  said:  "It  is  not  our 
purpose  to  invade  the  local  affairs  of  any  state.  "We  recognize 
that  in  its  own  affairs  it  should  be  sovereign  and  uncontrolled 
by  any  force  without."  The  great  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  closing 
the  debate,  when  he  reached  Jonesboro,  responding  to  Mr. 
Douglas,  and  the  sentiment  of  Illinois,  said:  "I,  too,  concur, 
that  in  matters  of  the  state,  wherein  her  own  affairs  are  con- 
cerned, these  should  not  be  invaded  by  any  source.  I  agree 
with  Judge  Douglas." 

Yet,  with  this  creed,  as  the  creed  of  government  for  the 
American  citizenship,  behold,  gentlemen  of  the  Illinois  legis- 
lature, of  the  sovereign  Illinois,  ho^v  it  has  been  invaded,  and  at 
times  completely  destroyed. 

My  friend.  Judge  Sherman,  will  yet  live,  if  Heaven  grant 
him  (as  I  hope  it  does),  the  full  statute  of  the  Divine  limitation, 
to  see  that  there  will  be  an  end  of  the  dual  form  of  government, 
to  which  he  so  splendidly  alluded,  if  this  form  of  intrusion  shall 
continue  and  multiply,  and  the  rights  of  the  states,  within 
their  province  of  home  rule,  shall  be  so  dishonored  on  one  hand, 
and  defeated  on  the  other. 

I  speak  to  Illinois.  You,  too,  were  the  victims  of  this  in- 
vasion. When  your  Legislature  passed  laws  in  this  State,  pre- 
scribing methods  of  taxation,  applying  to  the  large  institutions 
and  the  small  alike, — you  were  thwarted  in  the  execution. 

Your  body  of  men,  constituted  by  law,  and  known  as  the 
State  Board  of  Equalization,  executed  the  law  in  the  pursuit 
of  their  honest  judgment,  and  thereupon  it  was  assailed  by 
certain  institutions,  eleven  in  number,  most  of  whom  held  their 
possessions  within  -the  State,  their  ownership  being  out  of  it. 
The  controversy  was  carried  to  the  Federal  court,  and  one 
Federal  judge  enjoined  the  execution  of  the  law  of  Illinois, 
after  the  court  of  Illinois  had  affirmed  it. 

And  although  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois  .and  the  local 
courts  of  Illinois,  the  Legislature  of  Illinois,  and  your  branches 
of  government,  the  administrative,  executive,  and  ministerial 
departments  of  Illinois,  had  all  affirmed'  your  decision,  and 
executed  it  according  to  your  will,  it  was  left  to  this  invading 
authority  of  the  Federal  Court  to  set  it  aside,  and  nullify  it, 


71 

depriving  you  of  taxes  by  which  more  than  six  hundred  and 
eighty  thousands  of  dollars  were  taken  from  the  treasury  of 
Illinois,  that  otherwise  belonged  to  it  by  the  system  of  home 
rule  and  righteous  self-government,  within  the  sovereign  limits 
of  Illinois. 

It  was  because  of  things  such  as  these  that  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  raised  his  voice  on  principle,  that  there  might  be  no 
such  invasion  in  this  government  as  would  destroy  the  pride 
of  the  citizen,  the  honor  of  the  community,  the  glory  of  the 
State  and  the  manhood  of  the  man. 

Behold  you  then!  I  see  upon  your  splendid  walls,  as  I 
do  upon  the  adornments  of  this  splendid  house,  the  shield  of 
the  great  State  of  Illinois.  Mark  how  she  reads!  "State 
sovereignty;  national  Union." 

It  was  intended  by  the  fathers  who  constructed  you,  and 
laid  your  foundations,  that  these  two  should  be  together,  not 
invaded  one  by  the  other,  but  after  the  order  of  the  Heavens, 
where  the  constellations  glitter  before  our  eye,  each  planet 
in  its  place,  like  a  glowing  star,  each  state  likewise  within  its 
orbit,  differing  one  from  another  only  as  the  stars  differ,  one 
from  another,  in  their  glory.  It  was  because  of  home  rule, 
and  its  necessity,  in  order  to  give  the  citizen  liberty  and 
justice,  that  Mr.  Douglas  laid  down  his  doctrine  of  states* 
rights,  in  order  that  man  might  have  his  rights.     (Applause.) 

We  at  once  advert  to  the  second  phase,  more  interesting 
tonight,  perchance,  than  at  any  other  time  when  I  will  have 
the  honor  to  discuss  before  this  Legislature  any  proposition 
of  governmental  policy.  I  refer  to  Mr.  Douglas'  doctrine  of 
the  American  foreign  policy.  What  a  clear  vision  that  man 
seemed  to  possess!  How  goodly  good  was  the  Almighty  to 
him!  How  splendid  seemed  he  in  his  far-reaching  vision  of 
the  future !  Mr.  Douglas  found  himself  surrounded  by  a  con- 
dition unparalleled  in  this  government,  and  was  compelled  to 
take  his  monitor  only  from  his  own  sense  of  right  and  Ameri- 
canism. England  was  claiming  a  boundary  of  the  northwest, 
which  would  have  comprised  all  of  the  states  of  Oregon  and 
Washington,  and  all  of  the  waters  of  Puget  Sound.  Down  at 
the  neighboring  line  to  the  south  were  Mexico  and  Central 
America.  Southward  lay  Cuba,  with  England's  eye  anxiously 
addressed  to  it,  and  other  nations,  particularly  Spain,  anxious 
to  see  that  it  was  only  possessed  by  a  friend  of  hers.  Mr. 
Douglas  beheld  the  situation,  and  understood  the  future  of 
America.  He  denied  to  England  the  right  to  come  across  the 
waters  of  our  seas,  and  lay  hand  upon  the  integral  continent 
of  America.  He  denied  the  right  that  the  island  of  Cuba 
should  ever  be  placed  in  a  position  by  which  the  enemies  of 
American  sovereignty  should  ever  be  enabled  to  place  their 
weapons  of  offense  and  defense  so  near  th  door  of  America. 


72 

He  declared  his  doctrine  of  the  American  foreign  policy,  which 
was  the  full  execution  of  that  principle  known  as  the  Monroe 
Doctrine. 

You  will  recall,  gentlemen  of  the  Legislature,  that  in  1823, 
when  there  was  a  threat  on  the  part  of  Austria,,  Prussia,  Russia, 
and  one  other  country  to  take  possession  of  the  southern  border 
of  the  United  States,  under  the  guise  of  preserving  peace,  that 
Mr.  Canning,  who  was  then  the  premier  of  England,  addressed 
a  communication  to  Mr.  Monroe,  calling  his  attention  to  this 
peculiar  condition,  and  to  this  situation  that  bode  some  strange 
conditions  on  the  morrow. 

Promptly  Mr.  Monroe  conferred  with  Thomas  Jefferson, 
and  Mr.  Jefferson  sent  back  a  message,  saying,  in  response  to 
Mr.  Monroe 's  suggestion,  that  the  doctrine  should  go  forth  from 
America,  announcing  that  no  foreign  nation  should  be  permitted 
to  plant  its  colonies  on  the  soil  of  the  Western  Hemisphere. 

Said  Mr.  Jefferson.  ' '  This  is  the  most  important  declaration 
that  has  been  made  by  America,  since  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence." The  doctrine  thus  going  by  the  name  of  the  Mon- 
roe doctrine  proclaimed  to  the  world  that  on  this  continent, 
between  sea  and  sea,  there  should  be  only  American  land  for 
Americans. 

Mr.  Douglas,  in  his  position,  saw  the  design  on  the  part 
of  the  government,  that  for  so  long  had  an  eye,  first  of  envy, 
then  of  hatred,  then  of  covetousness,  on  this  republic,  anxious 
to  divide  it  if  possible ;  and  to  create  such  destruction  within 
it  as  could  be  brought  about  by  pitting  citizens  against  each 
other.  He  demanded  that  the  doctrine  known  as  the  ]\Ionroe 
doctrine  should  be  amply  held  out,  freely  disclosed,  securely 
executed. 

There  he  laid  down  the  doctrine  of  the  American  policy, 
which  was : 

''America's  hands  off  all  foreign  lands;  the  hands  of  for- 
eign lands  off  all  America."  Let  us  behold,  at  this  minute, 
what  Avould  have  been  the  result,  if  Mr.  Douglas'  attitude  had 
been  adopted  and  fully  executed?  What  would  have  been  our 
situation  today?  Yonder  stands  the  spectre  of  Japan.  There, 
upon  the  Pacific  coast  of  our  country,  arises  the  strange  shadow 
marked  by  Oriental  faces,  the  like  of  which  we  will  not  read 
accurately  in  this  present  time.  But  what  means  it?  Let  us 
be  just  to  the  history  of  today. 

Mr.  Douglas'  attitude  was  the  American  foreign  policy, 
that  this  country  should  keep  its  hands  off  that  which  did 
not  concern  it,  in  foreign  lands. 

In  the  meantime,  what  has  happened  to  America?  We 
have  fovind  it  agreeable,  my  fellow  Americans,  to  go  into  Asia, 


73 

and  into  the  Asiatic  continent,  laid  hands  upon  the  sphere  of 
Asia,  put  our  citizens  there,  and  demanded  that  they  be  pro- 
tected, under  treaty  witli  Japan  and  China,  equal  to  the  exact 
status  of  those  in  China  and  Japan.  We  have  thrust  out  our 
hands  to  take  the  Philippine  Islands,  upon  some  theory  of 
American  government,  eight  thousand  miles  from  the  shores  of 
our  lands.  As  a  result  of  these  far-reaching  activities,  we  can 
see  all  too  close  at  hand  the  prospect  of  war  with  Japan. 

Note  the  disturbance  ^^dth  England,  over  the  Panama 
Canal  treaty.  Mark  the  enmity  with  Russia  and  with  France, 
from  time  to  time,  arising  and  finding  expression  in  the  objec- 
tion to  the  construction  of  the  Panama  Canal.  Behold  the 
hatred  of  us  as  expressed  by  all  of  Central  and  South  America, 
all  of  these  difficulties  caused  by  our  late  course  of  unnecessar- 
ily meddling  at  the  direction  of  stock  speculators  into  the  pri- 
vate and  financial  affairs  of  foreign  lands. 

We  went  into  Asia  and  joined  England  in  the  seizing  of 
railroad  territory  in  Manchuria.  We  had  no  object  other  than 
the  aiding  of  financial  jobbers  in  Asia  who  claimed  to  be  Ameri- 
can, but  were  English  and  European  in  interest.  We  entered 
at  England's  invitation  to  meddle  in  the  matter  of  China  and 
her  obtaining  money  from  the  world  to  start  her  new  republic. 
We  went  into  Japan  with  our  stock  manipulators,  then  we  put 
behind  them  the  Federal  government,  and  this  gave  Japan 
the  right  to  demand  reciprocity,  that  the  Federal  government 
stand  behind  the  Japanese  in  America,  as  against  any  state 
regulation  protecting  that  state  from  the  effect  of  foreign  in- 
fluence in  domestic  matters.  Now  we  are  threatened  with  the 
reprisals  that  can  at  any  time  mean  the  seizure  of  the  Philip- 
pines and  Hawaii,  precipitating  a  war  of  worlds  on  America. 

For  private  objects,  and  to  serve  certain  well-known  syndi- 
cate interests,  we  "dabbled"  unnecessarily  into  South  America 
without  form  of  constitutional  ceremony,  and  now  find  Mexico, 
Central  and  South  America,  our  enemies,  and  making  combina- 
tions and  alliances  against  the  United  States  as  a  revenge.  All 
of  these  are  biding  their  time  to  aid  Japan,  or  any  Oriental 
or  European  enemy  in  an  assault  upon  us  and  in  the  destruction 
of  the  Panama  Canal, 

The  unfortunate  truth  is  that  we  find  ourselves  tonight, 
after  violating  the  ancient  doctrine  of  the  fathers,  forced  to 
confront  a  situation  so  solemn  and  perchance  so  serious  that  it 
will  require  all  the  splendid  ingenuity  and  engineering  on  the 
part  of  the  patriotic  administration  of  our  country,  to  avoid  a 
very  serious  result. 

HoAV  has  it  all  come  about?  It  has  been  brought  about 
somewhat  imperceptibly,  by  fatally  easy  gradations ;  because, 
as  Mr.  Roosevelt,  the  former  President  of  the  United  States, 
wisely  set  forth,  the  first  violation  of  principle  led  to  the 
second,  and  the  third  and  the  tenth  easily  followed. 


74 

That  these  countries,  abroad,  eight  thousand  miles  away 
from  our  furthest  coast,  cannot  understand  us,  is  natural. 
When  we  went  into  their  countries,  to  possess  ourselves  of  priv- 
ileges, and  to  partake  of  opportunities,  in  behalf  of  certain 
favored  individuals,  the  people  of  that  remote  region  turned 
and  demanded  a  reciprocity  we  cannot  render,  because  there 
is  a  wall  of  national  feeling.  To  give  citizenship  to  the  Jap- 
anese, and  allow  admission  and  limited  naturalization  to  the 
Chinese,  seems  to  those  nations  a  reasonable  and  consistent 
reciprocity  for  the  privileges  and  protection  we  seek  within 
their  realms.  But  the  protection  of  America,  of  the  livelihood 
of  our  toiling  citizens,  the  institutions  of  the  domestic  life, 
and  the  holy  home,  all  rise  to  remind  us  forcibly  of  the  im- 
possibility of  yielding  to  these  demands. 

In  the  absence  or  denial  of  such  reciprocity,  retaliation  is 
natural  indeed ! 

But  had  Mr.  Douglas,  with  his  far  foresight,  been  able  to 
warn  Mr.  Cass,  at  the  time  he  did,  and  to  have  warned  him 
successfully,  there  would  have  been  no  such  condition  upon 
America  today.  "We  would  have  avoided  the  very  condition 
that  surrounds  us  today,  by  the  exercise 'of  wisdom  in  following 
the  advice  of  this  democratic  sage,  this  great  American  states- 
man. 

There  was  the  other  phase.  He  likewise  saw  the  situation 
in  the  south,  when  he  opposed  the  doctrine  of  allowing  Central 
America  to  be  colonized  by  England,  and  allowing  England  to 
place  an  English  government  in  Honduras. 

He  reminded  the  United  States  Senate  that  there  might 
come  a  time  when  we  would  wish  to  cut  a  waterway  through 
that  isthmus,  and  for  its  protection  need  those  shores,  and 
that  they  should  not  be  in  the  hands  of  foreign  and  inimical 
nations;  and  there  he  laid  down  that  other  doctrine,  for  that 
treaty  known  as  the  Bulwer-Clayton  treaty,  which  was  executed 
in  1850. 

He  laid  down  the  theory  that  would  rise  to  haunt  us,  and 
would  plague  its  inventor  and  he  warned  this  country  that  the 
clause  of  that  theaty  which  forbade  us,  without  the  consent  of 
England,  to  fortify  our  own  country,  practically,  on  the  one 
hand,  or  to  colonize,  as  Americans  on  the  other,  would  rise 
to  persecute  us.  He,  with  his  American  foreign  policy,  raised 
his  voice  against  the  domination  of  America  by  any  other 
influence  on  earth  but  by  Americans.     (Applause.) 

It  was  only  yesterday,  my  fellow  Americans,  that  you 
saw  the  finest  diplomacy  of  that  splendid  gentleman,  Judge 
Taft,  the  former  President  of  the  United  States,  able  as  a 
lawyer,  and  eminent  as  a  citizen,  brought  to  bear  to  its  very 
fullest  extent,  in  order  to  avoid  a  conflict  with  England  over 
this  very  treaty,  by  which  they  forbade  us  fortifying  our  own 


border  on  the  one  hand,  and  colonizing  it  by  American  citizen- 
ship on  the  other;  but  Douglas,  nearly  fifty  years  before,  had 
warned  the  United  States  they  would  bring  upon  themselves 
just  such  a  calamity ;  and  upon  yesterday  we  read  in  the  daily 
press  how  Chamberlin,  the  Senator  from  Oregon,  joined  with 
other  Senators,  and  (doubtless  speaking  the  wisdom  of  the 
administration)  introduced  a  resolution  in  the  Senate,  in  order 
to  avoid  the  very  outrages  and  wrongs  to  America,  which 
Mr.  Douglas  pointed  out  would  inevitably  befall  us,  as  the 
resolution  calls,  first,  for  the  complete  abrogation  of  the  rem- 
nants of  the  Bulwer-Clayton  treaty  on  the  one  hand,  and  its 
successor,  the  Hay-Paunceforte  treaty  on  the  other,  in  order 
that  Americans  might  have  the  benefit  of  the  shores  of  the 
splendid  waterway  that  is  on  the  eve  of  completion,  that  Doug- 
las' splendid  vision  foresaw,  in  this  hour. 

This  statesman  beheld  the  world  in  his  contemplation.  He 
saw  America  in  her  advance.  He  recognized  the  marvels  of 
civilization,  and  conceived  of  the  future  like  a  man  gifted  with 
inspiration ;  but  an  American  at  heart  and  soul,  striving  for 
the  salvation  of  his  country. 

We  speak  of  these  things,  that  Ave  might  use  the  splendid 
language  of  Judge  Sherman,  and  his  predecessor,  to  vindicate 
the  intelligence  of  this  splendid  lllinoisan,  and  give  justice  and 
credit  to  the  noble  history  of  his  achievements,  as  tested  by 
time,  and  fulfilling  the  philosophy  of  Emerson,  as  proven  by 
trial,  well  may  Illinois  greet  him  tonight ! 

Let  us  dream  that  his  shade  may  hallow  this  sacred  pre- 
cinct ;  and  recognize  that  from  the  sons  of  those  who  did  him 
injustice,  there  comes  from  their  present  representatives  a 
splendid  encomium  to  his  fame. 

Statesman  he  was ;  scholar  and  statesman  still  he  is ;  potent 
in  his  influence  upon  America;  grand  in  his  design  for  Illinois; 
and  splendid  in  contemi)lation ;  the  object  and  example  to  chil- 
dren; and  a  monument  of  glory  to  Illinois.     (Applause.) 

I  therefore  speak  of  him  as  one  whose  deeds  I  revere,  and 
as  one  whose  wisdom,  let  us  realize,  had  it  been  followed,  would 
have  exempted  us  from  these  difficulties  which  are  about  ns 
now,  and  to  which  distinguished  speakers  have  alluded.  We 
will  come  back,  gentlemen  of  America,  to  the  doctrines  of  the 
fathers,  who  wrought  in  patience  and  wisdom. 

It  is  all  well  enough,  my  fellow  Illinoisans,  to  take  great 
pride  in  these  little  temporary  out])ursts  of  enthusiasm  that  we 
experience  from  time  to  time  when  someone  attains  to  some 
feat  that  is  known  in  its  hour  as  an  achievement,  when  it  is 
beheld  in  haste,  but — 


76 

"The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies, 
The  captains  and  the  kings  depart ; 

Still  stands  thine  ancient  sacrifice, 
A  humble  and  a  contrite  heart. 

Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet — 
Lest  we  forget !    Lest  we  forget ! ' ' 

We  go,  in  this  hour,  for  the  restoration  of  America,  back  to 
the  wisdom  of  other  days. 

If  America  is  to  be  preserved  to  her  children,  as  the  in- 
heritance of  freedom    and    justice,    as    transmitted  from  the 
fathers  who  founded  the  republic  of  Washington,  Jefferson  and 
Hamilton,  Ave  need  to  be  restored  to  the  doctrines  of  Douglas 
and  Lincoln,  which  followed  the  sacred  path  of  Washington, 
as  he  proclaimed,  in  his  farewell  message : 
"Peace  with  all  nations  ; 
Entangling  alliances  with  none. 
Here,  upon  this  rock,  we  build  our  church ! ' ' 
(Applause.) 

The  last  thought  which  shall  engage  my  attention  in  this 
casual  survey  of  this  distinguished  gentleman  shall  be  that  of 
"Patriot,"  and  that  splendid  loyalty  which  he  bore  to  his 
country — as  his  country! 

It  may  have  been,  gentlemen  of  Illinois,  that  he  must 
forego  the  hope  of  political  elevation ;  it  may  be  that  he  bade 
good-bye  to  those  flattering  huzzas  that  come  from  an  admiring 
multitude ;  it  may  be  that  he  kissed  farewell  to  many  ambitions 
and  opportunities  that  his  heart  cherished  and  his  soul  desired, 
all  for  the  good  of  his  country,  and  his  sincerity  as  a  patriot. 

Here  was  a  man  big  enough  to  realize  that  while  there 
could  be  personal  defeat  for  him.  through  such  defeat  there 
could  be  victory  for  that  which  was  beyond  and  superior  to 
him — his  country ! 

His  was  the  creed  of  the  Hero  of  Tripoli:  "My  country! 
May  she  be  right!    But,  right  or  wrong,  my  country!" 

Oh,  how  well  he  upheld  the  Constitution !  He  saw  the 
portent  of  war,  aiid  he  realized  what  it  meant  to  this  Union. 
He  did  all  he  could  to  avert  it.  Indoors  and  out,  he  spoke  of 
its  possibilities.  In  public  places  and  in  private  chambers,  he 
inveighed  against  those  who  sought  to  bring  on  disaster.  With 
every  expression  of  his  life,  he  cried  for  peace  and  justice,  but 
when  the  hour  came  that  it  was  inevitable,  in  his  vision  he  saw 
two  great  things,  the  fields  mowed  down,  desolation  in  the 
cities,  the  tramp  of  soldiery  breaking  upon  the  ear,  mothers 
in  terror,  hugging  their  babes  to  their  bosoms,  baptizing  their 
faces  in  the  falling  tears.  The  first  born  had  fallen  upon 
the  hills. 

Hje  realized  it  was  war !  There  was  but  one  place  for  him, 
and  that  was  the  Temple  of  the  Republic.  There  he  hastened, 
in  great  anxiety  for  his  country. 


11 


He  was  a  citizen  of  Illinois!  He  was  the  compatriot  of 
Lincoln !  He  was  the  devoted  son  of  the  Constitution,  and  it 
was  in  that  hour  that  the  splendor  of  his  character  rose  above 
every  form  of  hostile  accusation.  Still  we  l)ehold  him,  tonight 
in  the  retrospect,  sweet  and  gentle  with  it  all ! 

Gentlemen,  I  can  possibly  appreciate  more  fully  the  situa- 
tion than  many  of  you  Avho  honor  me  with  your  audience.  I 
recognize  that  with  these  distinguished  speakers  who  preceded 
me,  we  accord  to  all  men  tonight  that  that  which  they  did, 
and  that  which  they  said,  came  from  the  heart  that  beat  w^ithin 
them,  came  from  the  soul  of  duty,  as  it  was  defined  by  every 
impulse  of  patriotism! 

I  come  from  that  borderland,  where  on  a  thousand  hills 
a  mother  kissed  her  two  sons  good-bye,  and  sent  them  with 
her  tears  upon  their  cheeks,  one  to  die  for  his  country,  the  other 
to  fall  for  his  home ! 

Blessed  be  he  that  speaketh  from  his  heart !  Tonight  we 
pray  for  all,  in  common,  and  pray  they  rest  in  heaven  together, 
I  therefore  speak  of  them  as  one  who  speaks  of  the  common 
country  preserved.  I  delight  tonight  to  feel  that  the  sons  of 
those  who  battled  together  are  once  again  re-united.  There  is 
no  division  within  us,  either  upon  the  theory  of  government 
or  upon  the  doctrines  of  the  Constitution. 

We  stated  again  with  Lincoln  and  Douglas,  and  as  my 
friend,  Judge  Sherman,  correctly  said,  if  there  be  conditions 
in  this  republic  that  now  shadow  us  with  some  dire  tomorrow, 
discretion  bids  us  be  careful  lest  we  exercise  too  much  liberty 
in  the  definition,  that  there  shall  be  the  days  to  come  which 
are  feared  by  some,  that  the  great  advancing  America  may 
be  on  the  eve  of  an  unnecessary  conflict,  again  involving  her 
people.  If  the  tomorrows  are  fraught  with  mystery,  and  the 
days  to  come  uncertain,  we  have  a  remedy  to  avoid  the  results, 
if  these  portend  danger.  Let  us  feel  that  tomorroAV  is  secure 
within  the  patriotism  of  American  citizenship.  Let  us  feel 
within  the  revival  of  the  Love  of  the  Father  in  Heaven,  the 
home  on  earth,  and  mankind  around  us,  we  have  our  own 
solution  ;  and  as  the  sentry  of  the  passing  years  paces  his  rounds 
upon  the  watch  tower  of  civilization,  shall  ring  out  the  chal- 
lenge:  "Watchman,  what  of  the  night?"  Heaven  grant  that 
out  of  the  reunited  hearts  of  these  Americans,  there  will  come 
again  the  response:  ''Restored,  again,  to  the  faith  of  Lincoln 
and  Douglas.    Thank  God!    All  is  well!"     (Applause.) 

I  thank  you. 

Governor  Dunne: — Before  dispersmg,  ladies  and  gentle- 
men, we  will  conclude  the  services  by  hearing  from  the  Apollo 
Quartette. 

Music. 


Adlai  E.  Stevenson 


79 


STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS  • 

By  Adlai  E.  Stevenson* 
Ex-Vice  President  of  the  United  States 

Mr.  President. — History  has  been  defined :  ' '  The  sum  of  the 
biographies  of  a  few  strong  men."  Much  that  is  of  profound 
and  abiding  interest  in  American  history  during  the  two 
decades  immediately  preceding  our  Civil  War,  is  bound  up  in 
the  biography  of  the  strong  man  of  whom  I  speak.  Chief  among 
the  actors,  his  place  was  near  the  middle  of  the  stage,  during 
that  eventful  and  epoch  marking  period. 

Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  born  in  Brandon,  Vt.,  April  23, 
1813,  and  died  in  Chicago,  111.,  June  3,  1861.  Between  the  dates 
given  lie  the  years  that  make  up  a  crowded,  eventful  life.  Left 
penniless  by  the  death  of  his  father,  he  was  at  a  tender  age 
dependent  upon  his  own  exertions  for  maintenance  and  educa- 
tion. At  the  age  of  fifteen  he  apprenticed  himself  to  a  cabinet 
maker  in  the  town  of  Middlebury  in  his  native  state.  Naturally 
of  delicate  organization,  he  was  unable  long  to  endure  the 
physical  strain  of  this  calling,  and  at  the  close  of  two  years' 
service  he  returned  to  his  early  home.  Entering  an  academy 
in  Brandon,  he  there  for  a  time  pursued  with  reasonable  dili- 
gence the  studies  preparatory  to  a  higher  course.  Supplement- 
ing the  education  thus  acquired  by  a  brief  course  of  study  in  an 
academy  at  Canandaigua,  N.  Y.,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  he  turned 
his  footsteps  westward. 

One  of  the  biographers  says:  "It  is  doubtful  if  among  all 
the  thousands  who  in  those  early  days  were  faring  westward 
from  New  England,  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas,  there  ever  was 
a  youth  more  resolutely  and  boldly  addressed  to  opportunity 
than  he.  Penniless,  broken  in  health,  almost  diminutive  in 
phj'sical  stature,  and  unknown,  he  made  his  way  successively 
to  Cincinnati,  Louisville  and  St.  Louis,  in  search  of  employment, 
literally  of  bread."  By  a  sudden  turn  in  fortune's  wheel  his 
lot  was  cast  in  Central  Illinois,  where  his  first  vocation  was  that 
of  teacher  of  a  village  school.  Yet  later — after  laborious  appli- 
cation— admitted  to  the  bar,  he  courageously  entered  upon  his 
marvelous  career. 

His  home  was  Jacksonville,  and  to  the  hardy  pioneers  of 
Morgan  and  neighboring  counties,  it  was  soon  revealed  that 
notwithstanding  his  slight  stature  and  boyish  appearance,  the 
youthful  Douglas  was  at  once  to  be  taken  fully  into  the  account. 
Self  reliant  to  the  very  verge,  he  unhesitatingly  entered  the 
arena  of  active  professional  and  political  strife  with  "foemen 
worthy  the  steel"  of  veterans  at  the  bar.  and  upon  the  hustings. 

♦Mr.  Stevenson,  being  unable  to  attend  the  exercises,  sent  this  address, 
•which  he  had  delivered  before  the  ninth  annual  meeting  of  the  State 
Historical  Society,  January  30,  1908.  It  is  reprinted  from  the  proceedings 
of  the  Society  for  that  year. 


80 

The  issues  were  sharply  drawn  between  the  two  political 
parties  then  struggling  for  ascendency,  and  Central  Illinois  was 
the  home  of  as  brilliant  an  array  of  gifted  leaders  as  the  Whig 
party  at  any  time  in  its  palmiest  days  had  known.  Hardin, 
Stuart,  Browning,  Logan,  Baker,  Lincoln,  were  just  then  upon 
the  threshold  of  careers  that  have  given  their  names  an  honored 
and  enduring  place  upon  the  pages  of  our  history.  Into  the 
safe  keeping  of  the  leaders  just  named  w^ere  entrusted,  in  large 
degree,  the  advocacy  of  the  principles  of  the  now  historic  party, 
and  the  political  fortunes  of  its  great  chieftain,  Henry  Clay. 

As  is  well  known,  the  principal  antagonist  of  the  re- 
nowned Whig  chieftain  was  Andrew  Jackson.  Earlier  in  their 
political  careers,  both  had  been  earnest  supporters  of  the  ad- 
ministration of  President  Monroe,  but  at  its  close,  the  leaders 
last  named,  with  Adams  and  Crawford,  were  aspirants  to  the 
great  office.  No  candidates  receiving  a  majority  of  the  elec- 
toral votes,  and  the  selection  by  constitutional  requirement  de- 
volving upon  the  House  of  Representatives,  Mr.  Adams  was 
eventually  chosen.  His  election  over  his  principal  competitor. 
General  Jackson,  was  largely  through  the  influence  of  Mr.  Clay ; 
and  the  subsequent  acceptance  by  the  latter  of  the  office  of  the 
Secretary  of  State,  gave  rise  to  the  unfounded  but  vehement 
cry  of  "bargain  and  corruption"  which  followed  the  Kentucky 
statesman  through  two  presidential  struggles  of  later  periods, 
and  died  wholly  away  only  when  the  clods  had  fallen  upon  his 
grave. 

Triumphant  in  his  candidacy  over  Adams  in  1828,  President 
Jackson,  four  years  later,  encountered  as  his  formidable  com- 
petitor his  colossal  antagonist — the  one  man  for  whom  he  had 
no  forgiveness,  even  when  the  shadows  were  gathering  about 
his  own  couch. 

"The  early  and  better  days  of  the  republic"  is  by  no  means 
an  unusual  expression  in  the  political  literature  of  our  day. 
Possibly  all  the  generations  of  men  have  realized  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  words  of  the  great  Bard : 

"Past  and  to  come,  seem  best; 
Things   present — worst. 
We  are  time's  subjects." 

And  yet — barring  the  closing  months  of  the  administration 
of  the  elder  Adams — this  country  has  known  no  period  of  more 
intense  party  passion,  or  of  more  deadly  feuds  among  political 
leaders,  than  w^as  manifested  during  the  presidential  contest  of 
1832.  The  Whig  party — Avith  Henry  Clay  as  its  candidate,  and 
its  idol — was  for  the  first  time  in  the  field.  Catching  something 
of  the  spirit  of  its  imperious  leader,  its  campaign  was  relent- 
lessly aggressive.  The  scabbard  Avas  thrown  away,  and  all  lines 
of  retreat  cut  off  from  the  beginning.  No  act  of  the  party  in 
power  escaped  the  limelight,  no  delinquency,  real  or  imaginary, 
of  Jackson — its  candidate  for  re-election — but  was  ruthlessly 


81 

drawn  into  the  open  day.  Even  the  domestic  hearthstone  was 
invaded  and  antagonisms  engendered  that  knew  no  surcease 
until  the  last  of  the  chief  participants  in  the  eventful  struggle 
had  descended  to  the  tomb. 

The  defeat  of  Clay  but  intensified  his  hostility  toward  his 
successful  rival,  and  with  a  following  that  in  personal  devotion 
to  its  leader  has  scarcely  known  a  parallel,  he  was  at  once  the 
peerless  front  of  a  powerful  opposition  to  the  Jackson  admin- 
istration. 

Such  were  the  existing  political  conditions  throughout  the 
country  when  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  at  the  age  of  22,  first  entered 
the  arena  of  debate.  It  would  not  be  strange  if  such  environ- 
ment left  its  deep  impress,  and  measurably  gave  direction  to 
his  political  career.  The  period  of  probation  and  training  so 
essential  to  ordinary  men  was  unneeded  by  him.  Fully  equipped, 
with  a  self-confidence  that  has  rarely  had  a  counterpart — he 
was  from  the  beginning  the  earnest  defender  of  the  salient 
measures  of  the  Democratic  administration,  and  the  aggressive 
champion  of  President  Jackson.  Absolutely  fearless,  he  took 
no  reckoning  of  the  opposite  forces,  and  regardless  of  the 
prowess  or  ripe  experience  of  adversaries  he  at  all  times,  in 
and  out  of  season,  gladly  welcomed  the  encounter.  To  this  end 
he  did  not  await  opportunities,  but  eagerly  sought  them. 

His  first  contest  for  public  office  was  with  John  J.  Hardin,, 
by  no  means  the  least  gifted  of  the  brilliant  Whig  leaders 
already  mentioned.  Defeated  by  Douglas  in  his  candidacy  for 
re-election  to  the  office  of  Attorney  General,  Colonel  Hardin  at 
a  later  day  achieved  distinction  as  a  Representative  in  Congress, 
and  at  the  early  age  of  37,  fell  while  gallantly  leading  his  regi- 
ment upon  the  bloody  field  of  Buena  Vista.  In  the  catalogue 
of  men  worthy  of  remembrance,  there  is  found  the  name  of  na 
braver,  manlier  man  than  that  of  John  J.  Hardin. 

With  well  earned  laurels  as  public  prosecutor,  Mr.  Douglas 
resigned  after  two  years  incumbency  of  that  office,  to  accept 
that  of  representative  in  the  State  Legislature.  The  Tenth  Gen- 
eral Assembly — to  which  he  was  chosen,  was  the  most  notable 
in  Illinois  history.  Upon  the  roll  of  members  of  the  House, 
in  the  old  capitol  at  Vandalia,  were  names  inseparably  asso- 
ciated with  the  history  of  the  State  and  the  Nation.  From  its 
list  were  yet  to  be  chosen  two  governors  of  the  Commonwealth, 
one  member  of  the  Cabinet,  three  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  State,  eight  Representatives  in  Congress,  six  Senators, 
and  one  President  of  the  United  States.  That  would  indeed 
be  a  notable  assemblage  of  law  makers  in  any  country  or 
time,  that  included  in  its  membership  McClernand,  EdAvards, 
Ewing,  Semple,  Logan,  Hardin,  Browning,  Shields,  Baker, 
Stuart,  Douglas  and  Lincoln. 

In  this  Assembly  Mr.  Douglas  encountered  in  impassioned 
debate,  possibly  for  the  first  time,  two  men  against  whom  in 

6- 


82 

succession  he  was  soon  to  be  opposed  upon  the  hustings  as  a 
candidate  for  Congress ;  and  later  as  an  aspirant  to  yet  more 
exalted  stations,  another,  with  whose  name — now  ' '  given  to  the 
ages" — his  own  is  linked  inseparably  for  all  time. 

The  most  brilliant  and  exciting  contest  for  the  National 
House  of  Representatives  the  State  has  known,  excepting  pos- 
sibly that  of  Cook  and  McLean  a  decade  and  a  half  earlier,  was 
that  of  1838  between  John  T,  Stuart  and  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 
They  were  the  recognized  champions  of  their  respective  parties. 
The  district  embraced  two-thirds  of  the  area  of  the  State,  ex- 
tending from  the  counties  immediately  south  of  Sangamon  and 
Morgan,  northward  to  Lake  Michigan  and  the  Wisconsin  line. 
Together  on  horseback,  often  across  unbridged  streams,  and 
through  pathless  forest  and  prairie,  they  journeyed,  holding 
joint  debates  in  all  of  the  county  seats  of  the  district — includ- 
ing the  then  villages  of  Jacksonville,  Springfield,  Peoria,  Pekin, 
Bloomington,  Quincy,  Joliet,  Galena,  and  Chicago.  It  was  said 
of  Hon.  Richard  M.  Young,  a  noted  lawyer  of  the  early  days, 
that  he  possessed  one  eminent  qualification  for  the  office  of 
Circuit  Judge — that  of  being  a  good  horseback  rider.  It  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  our  candidates  for  Congress  three  score 
and  ten  years  ago,  possessed  this  qualification  in  a  rare  degree. 
That  the  candidates  were  well  matched  in  ability  and  eloquence 
readily  appears  from  the  fact  that  after  an  active  canvass  of 
several  months,  Major  Stuart  was  elected  by  a  majority  of  but 
eight  votes.  My  re-elections  he  served  six  years  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  and  was  one  of  its  ablest  and  most  valuable 
members.  In  Congress,  he  was  the  political  friend  and  asso- 
ciate of  Crittenden,  Winthrop,  Clay  and  "Webster.  Major 
Stuart  lives  in  my  memory  as  a  splendid  type  of  the  Whig 
statesman  of  the  Golden  Age.  Courteous  and  kindly,  he  was 
at  all  times,  a  Kentucky  gentleman  of  "the  old  school"  if  ever 
one  trod  this  blessed  earth. 

Returning  to  the  bar  after  his  defeat  for  Congress,  Mr. 
Douglas  was  in  quick  succession,  Secretary  of  State  by  ap- 
pointment of  the  Governor  and  Judge  of  the  Circuit  and 
Supreme  Courts  by  election  of  the  Legislature.  The  courts  he 
held  as  nisi  prius  Judge  were  in  the  Quincy  circuit  and  the  last 
named  city  for  the  time  his  home.  His  associates  upon  the 
supreme  bench  were  Justices  Treat,  Caton,  Ford,  Wilson,  Scates 
and  Lockwood.  His  opinions,  twenty-one  in  number,  will  be 
found  in  Scammon's  reports.  There  was  little  in  any  of  the 
causes  submitted  to  fully  test  his  capacity  as  lawyer  or  logician. 
Enough,  however,  appears  from  his  clear  and  concise  state- 
ments and  arguments  to  justify  the  belief  that  had  his  life 
been  unreservedly  given  to  the  profession  of  the  law — his 
talents  concentrated  upon  the  mastery  of  its  eternal  principles, 
he  would  in  the  end  have  been  amply  rewarded  "by  that  mis- 


83 

tress  who  is  at  the  same  time  so  jealous  and  so  just."  This, 
however,  was  not  to  be,  and  to  a  field  more  alluring  his  foot- 
steps were  soon  turned. 

Abandoning  the  bench  to  men  less  ambitious,  he  was  soon 
embarked  upon  the  uncertain  and  delusive  sea  of  politics. 

His  unsuccessful  opponent  for  Congress  in  1842  was  Hon. 
Orville  H.  Browning  with  whom  in  the  State  Legislature  he  had 
measured  swords  over  a  partisan  resolution  sustaining  the  finan- 
cial policy  of  President  Jackson.  "The  whirligig  of  time 
brings  in  his  ravages, ' '  and  it  so  fell  out  that  near  two  decades 
later  it  was  the  fortune  of  Mr.  Browning  to  occupy  a  seat  in 
the  Senate  as  the  successor  to  Douglas — "touched  by  the  finger 
of  death."  At  a  later  day,  Mr.  Browning  as  a  member  of  the 
cabinet  of  President  Johnson  acquitted  himself  with  honor  in 
the  discharge  of  the  exacting  duties  of  Secretary  of  the  Interior. 
So  long  as  men  of  high  aims,  patriotic  hearts,  and  noble  achieve- 
ments are  held  in  grateful  remembrance,  his  name  will  have 
honored  place  in  our  country's  annals. 

The  career  upon  which  Mr.  Douglas  now  entered  was  the 
one  for  which  he  was  pre-eminently  fitted,  and  to  which  he  had 
aspired  from  the  beginning.  It  was  a  career  in  which  national 
fame  was  to  be  achieved,  and — by  re-elections  to  the  House, 
and  later  to  the  Senate — to  continue  without  interruption  to 
the  last  hour  of  his  life.  He  took  his  seat  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  December  5,  1843,  and  among  his  colleagues 
were  Semple  and  Breese  of  the  Senate,  and. Hardin,  McClernand, 
Ficklin  and  Wentworth  of  the  House.  Mr.  Stephens  of  Georgia, 
with  whom  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  serve  in  the  Forty-fourth 
and  Forty-sixth  Congresses,  told  me  that  he  entered  the  House 
the  same  day  with  Douglas,  and  that  he  distinctly  recalled  the 
delicate  and  youthful  appearance  of  the  latter  as  he  advanced 
to  the  Speaker's  desk  to  receive  the  oath  of  office. 

Conspicuous  among  the  leaders  of  the  House  in  the  Twenty- 
eighth  Congress  were  Hamilton  Fish,  Washington  Hunt,  Henry 
A.  Wise,  Howell  Cobb,  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  Linn  Boyd,  John 
Sidell,  Barnw^ell  Rhett,  Robert  C.  Winthrop  the  Speaker,  Han- 
nibal Hamlin,  elected  Vice  President  upon  the  ticket  with 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  1860,  Andrew  Johnson,  the  successor  of  the 
lamented  president  in  1865,  and  John  Quincy  Adams,  whose 
brilliant  career  as  Ambassador,  Senator,  Secretary  of  State  and 
President,  was  rounded  out  by  near  two  decades  of  faithful 
service  as  a  Representative  in  Congress. 

The  period  that  witnessed  the  entrance  of  Mr.  Douglas 
into  the  great  commons  was  an  eventful  one  in  our  political 
history.  John  Tyler,  upon  the  death  of  President  Harrison, 
had  succeeded  to  the  great  office,  and  was  in  irreconcilable 
hostility  to  the  leaders  of  his  party  upon  the  vital  issues  upon 
which  the  Whig  victory  of  1840  had  been  achieved.  Henry 
Clay,  then  at  the  zenith  of  his  marvelous  powers,  merciless  in 


84 

his  arraignment  of  the  Tyler  administration,  was  unwittingly 
breeding  the  party  dissensions  that  eventually  compassed  his 
own  defeat  in  his  last  struggle  for  the  presidency.  Daniel 
Webster,  regardless  of  the  criticism  of  party  associate,  and 
after  the  retirement  of  his  Whig  colleagues  from  the  Tyler 
cabinet,  still  remained  at  the  head  of  the  State  Department. 
His  vindication,  if  needed,  abundantly  appears  in  the  treaty 
by  which  our  northeastern  boundary  was  definitely  adjusted, 
and  war  with  England  happily  averted. 

In  the  rush  of  events,  party  antagonisms,  in  the  main,  soon 
fade  from  remembrance.  One,  however,  that  did  not  pass 
with  the  occasion,  but  lingered  even  to  the  shades  of  the  Her- 
mitage, was  unrelenting  hostility  to  President  Jackson.  For 
his  declaration  of  martial  law  in  New  Orleans  just  prior  to 
the  battle,  with  which  his  own  name  is  associated  for  all  time — 
General  Jackson  had  been  subjected  to  a  heavy  fine  by  a  judge 
of  that  city.  Repeated  attempts  in  Congress  looking  to  his 
vindication  and  re-imbursement,  had  been  unavailing.  Secur- 
ing the  floor  for  the  first  time,  Mr.  Douglas,  upon  the  anni- 
versary of  the  great  victory,  delivered  an  impassioned  speech 
in  vindication  of  Jackson  which  at  once  challenged  the  atten- 
tion of  the  country,  and  gave  him  high  place  among  the  great 
debaters  of  that  memorable  congress.  In  reply  to  the  demand 
of  an  opponent  for  a  precedent  for  the  proposed  legislation. 
Douglas  quickly  responded:  "Possibly,  sir,  no  case  can  be 
found  on  any  page  of  American  history  where  the  commanding 
officer  has  been  fined  for  an  act  absolutely  necessary  to  the 
salvation  of  his  country.  As  to  the  precedents,  let  us  make  one 
now  that  will  challenge  the  admiration  of  the  world  and  stand 
the  test  of  all  the  ages."  After  a  graphic  description  of  con- 
ditions existing  in  New  Orleans  at  the  time  of  Jackson's  dec- 
laration of  martial  law;  "the  city  filled  with  traitors,  anxious 
to  surrender;  spies  transmitting  information  to  the  camp  of 
the  enemy,  British  regulars — four  fold  the  number  of  American 
defenders,  advancing  to  the  attack,  in  this  terrible  emergency, 
necessity  became  the  paramount  law,  the  responsibility  was 
taken,  martial  law  declared,  and  a  victory  achicA^ed  un- 
paralleled in  the  annals  of  war;  a  victory  that  avenged  the 
infamy  of  the  wanton  burning  of  our  nation's  capitol,  fully,  and 
for  all  time." 

The  speech  was  unanswered,  the  bill  passed,  and  probably 
Douglas  knew  no  prouder  moment  than  when  a  few  months 
later  upon  a  visit  to  the  Hermitage,  he  received  the  earnest 
thanks  of  the  venerable  commander  for  his  masterly  vindi- 
cation. 

Two  of  the  salient  and  far  reaching  questions  confronting 
the  statesmen  of  that  cA^entful  Congress  pertained  to  the  set- 
tlement of  the  Oregon  boundary  question,  and  to  the  annexa- 
tion of  the  republic  of  Texas.       The  first  named  question — 


85 

left  unsettled  by  the  treaty  of  Ghent  had  been  for  two  genera- 
tions the  apple  of  discord  betAveen  the  American  and  British 
governments.  That  it,  at  a  critical  moment  came  near  involv- 
ing the  two  nations  in  war  is  a  well  known  fact  in  history. 
The  platform  upon  Avhich  Mr.  Polk  had  in  1844  been  elected 
to  the  presidency  asserted  unequivocallj^  tlie  right  of  the  United 
States  to  the  whole  of  the  Oregon  territory.  The  boundary  line 
of  "fifty-four-forty"  was  in  many  of  the  states  the  decisive 
party  watchword  in  that  masterful  contest. 

Mr.  Douglas,  in  full  accord  with  his  party  upon  this  ques- 
tion, ably  canvassed  Illinois  in  earnest  advocacy  of  Mr.  Polk's 
election.  When  at  a  later  day  it  was  determined  by  the  Presi- 
dent and  his  official  advisers  to  abandon  the  party  platform 
demand  of  "fifty-four  degrees  and  forty  minutes"  as  the  only 
settlement  of  the  disputed  boundary,  and  accept  that  of  the 
parallel  of  forty-nine  degrees,  reluctantly  proposed  by  Great 
Britain  as  a  peaceable  final  settlement — Mr.  Douglas  earnestly 
antagonizing  any  concession,  was  at  once  in  opposition  to  the 
administration  he  had  assisted  to  bring  into  power.  "Whether 
the  part  of  wisdom  was  a  strict  adherence  to  the  platform  dicta 
of  "the  whole  of  Oregon,"  or  a  reasonable  concession  in  the 
interest  of  peaceable  adjustment  of  a  dangerous  question,  was 
long  a  matter  of  vehement  discussion.  It  suffices  that  the 
treaty  with  Great  Britain  establishing  our  northwestern  bound- 
ary upon  the  parallel  last  named,  was  promptly  ratified  by  the 
Senate,  and  the  once  famous  "Oregon  question"  peaceably  rele- 
gated to  the  realm  of  history. 

A  question — sixty  odd  years  ago — -equal  in  importance  with 
that  of  the  Oregon  boundary,  was  the  annexation  of  Texas. 
The  "Lone  Star  State"  had  been  virtually  an  independent 
republic  since  the  decisive  victory  of  General  Houston  over 
Santa  Anna  in  1837  at  San  Jacinto,  and  its  independence  as 
such  had  been  acknowledged  by  our  own  and  European  gov- 
ernments. The  hardy  settlers  of  the  new  commonwealth  were 
in  the  main  emigrants  from  the  United  States,  and  earnestly 
solicitous  of  admission  into  the  Federal  Union.  The  question 
of  annexation  entered  largely  into  the  presidential  canvass 
of  1844,  and  the  "lone  star"  upon  Democratic  banners  was 
an  important  factor  in  securing  the  triumph  of  Mr.  Polk  in 
that  bitterly  contested  election.  In  the  closing  hours  of  the 
Tyler  administration,  annexation  was  at  length  effected  by 
joint  resolution  of  Congress,  and  Texas  passed  at  once  from 
an  independent  republic  to  a  state  of  the  American  Union. 
This  action  of  Congress,  however,  gave  deep  offense  to  the 
Mexican  government,  and  was  the  initial  in  a  series  of  stirring 
events  soon  to  follow.  The  Mexican  invasion,  the  brilliant 
victories  won  by  American  valor,  and  the  Treaty  of  Peace,  by 
which  our  domain  was  extended  westward  to  the  Pacific,  con-' 
stitute  a  thrilling  chapter  in  the   annals  of  war.       Brief  in 


86 

duration,  the  Mexican  war  was  the  training  school  for  men 
whose  military  achievements  were  yet  to  make  resplendent 
the  pages  of  history.  Under  the  victorious  banners  of  the  great 
commanders,  Taylor  and  Scott,  were  Thomas  and  Beauregard, 
Shields  and  Hill,  Johnston  and  Sherman,  McClellan  and  Long- 
street,  Hancock  and  Stonewall  Jackson,  Lee  and  Grant.  In  the 
list  of  its  heroes  were  eight  future  candidates  for  the  presidency, 
three  of  whom,  Taylor,  Pierce  and  Grant,  were  triumphantly 
elected. 

Meanwhile  at  the  nation's  capitol  was  held  high  debate 
over  questions  second  in  importance  to  none  that  have  engaged 
the  profound  consideration  of  statesmen,  that  literally  took 
hold  of  the  issues  of  war,  conquest,  diplomacy,  peace,  empire. 
From  its  inception,  Mr.  Douglas  was  an  unfaltering  advocate 
of  the  project  of  annexation,  and  as  chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Territories,  bore  prominent  part  in  the  protracted 
and  exciting  debates  consequent  upon  the  passage  of  that 
measure  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  In  his  celebrated 
colloquy  with  Mr.  Adams  he  contended  that  the  joint  resolution 
he  advocated  was  in  reality  only  for  the  re-annexation  of  ter- 
ritory originally  ours  under  the  Louisiana  purchase  of  1803. 
That  something  akin  to  the  spirit  of  "manifest  destiny" 
brooded  over  the  discussion  may  be  gathered  from  the  closing 
sentences  of  his  speech:  "Our  Federal  system  is  admirably 
adapted  to  the  whole  continent ;  and  while  I  would  not  violate 
the  laws  of  nations  or  treaty  stipulations,  or  in  any  manner 
tarnish  the  national  honor,  I  would  exert  all  legal  and  honorable 
means  to  drive  Great  Britain  and  the  last  vestige  of  royal 
authority  from  the  continent  of  North  America,  and  extend  the 
limits  of  the  republic  from  ocean  to  ocean.  I  would  make  this 
an  ocean  bound  republic,  and  have  no  more  disputes  about 
boundaries  or  red  lines  on  maps." 

Elected  to  the  Senate  at  the  age  of  thirty-four,  Mr.  Douglas 
took  his  seat  in  that  august  body  in  December,  1847.  On  the 
same  day  Abraham  Lincoln  took  the  oath  of  office  as  a  member 
from  Illinois  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  Senate  was 
presided  over  by  the  able  and  accomplished  Vice  President, 
George  M.  Dallas.  Seldom  has  there  been  a  more  imposing  list 
of  great  names  than  that  which  now  included  the  young  Senator 
from  Illinois.  Conspicuous  among  the  Senators  of  the  thirty 
states  represented  were  Dix  of  New  York,  Dayton  of  New 
Jersey,  Hale  of  New  Hampshire,  Clayton  of  Delaware,  Reverdy 
Johnson  of  Maryland,  Mason  of  Virginia,  King  of  Alabama, 
Davis  of  Mississippi,  Bell  of  Tennessee,  Corwin  of  Ohio,  Crit- 
tenden of  Kentucky.  Breese  of  Illinois,  Benton  of  Missouri, 
Houston  of  Texas,  Calhoun  of  South  Carolina,  and  "Webster  of 
Massachusetts.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  debates  of 
that  and  the  immediately  succeeding  Congress  have  possibly 
never  been  surpassed  in  ability  and  eloquence  by  any  delibera- 
tive assembly. 


87 

The  one  vital  and  portentous  question,  in  some  one  of  its 
many  phases,  then  under  continuous  discussion,  was  that  of 
human  slavery.  This  institution,  until  its  final  extinction  amid 
the  flames  of  war,  cast  its  ominous  shadow  over  our  nation's 
pathway  from  the  beginning.  From  the  establishment  of  the 
government  under  the  Federal  Constitution  to  the  period  men- 
tioned, it  had  been  the  constant  subject  of  compromise  and 
concession. 

Henry  Clay  was  first  known  as  "the  great  pacificator" 
by  his  tireless  efforts  in  the  exciting  struggle  of  1820  over  the 
admission  of  Missouri,  with  its  constitution  recognizing  slavery, 
into  the  Federal  Union.  Bowed  with  the  weight  of  years,  the 
Kentucky  statesman  from  the  retirement  he  had  sought — in 
recognition  of  the  general  desire  of  his  countrymen — again 
returned  to  the  theatre  of  his  early  struggles  and  triumphs. 
The  fires  of  ambition  had  burned  low  by  age  and  bereavement, 
but  with  earnest  longing  that  he  might  again  "pour  oil  upon 
the  troubled  waters"  he  presented  to  the  Senate  as  terms  of 
final  peaceable  adjustment  of  the  slavery  question,  the  once 
famous  "Compromise  measures  of  1850." 

The  sectional  agitation  then  at  its  height  was  measurably 
the  result  of  the  proposed  disposition  of  territory  acquired  by 
the  then  recent  treaty  with  Mexico.     The  advocates  and  op- 
ponents of  slavery  extension  were  at  once  in  bitter  antagonisms 
and  intensity  of  feeling  such  as  the  country  had  rarely  known. . 

The  compromise  measures — proposed  by  Mr.  Clay  in  a  gen- 
eral bill — embraced  the  establishment  of  territorial  govern- 
ments for  Utah  and  New  Mexico,  the  settlement  .of  the  Texas 
boundary,  an  amendment  to  the  fugitive  slave  law,  and  the 
admission  of  California  as  a  free  state.  In  entire  accord  with 
each  proposition,  Mr.  Douglas  had — ^by  direction  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Territories,  of  which  he  was  the  chairman — reported 
a  bill  providing  for  the  immediate  admission  of  California 
under  its  recently  adopted  free  state  constitution.  Separate 
measures  embracing  the  other  propositions  of  the  general  bill 
were  likewise  duly  reported.  These  measures  were  advocated 
by  the  Illinois  Senator  in  a  speech  that  at  once  won  him  recog- 
nized place  among  the  great  debaters  of  that  illustrious  assem- 
blage. After  many  weeks  of  earnest,  at  times  vehement  debate, 
the  bills  in  the  form  last  mentioned  were  passed,  and  received' 
the  approval  of  the  President.  Apart  from  the  significance  of 
these  measures  as  a  peace  offering  to  the  country,  their  passage 
closed  a  memorable  era  in  our  history.  During  their  discussion 
Clay,  Calhoun  and  "Webster — "the  illustrious  triumvirate" — 
were  heard  for  the  last  time  in  the  Senate.  Greatest  of  the 
second  generation  of  our  statesman,  associated  in  the  advocacy 
of  measures  that  in  the  early  day  of  the  republic  had  given  us 
exalted  place  among  the  nations,  vnthin  brief  time  of  each  other, 
"shattered  by  the  contentions  of  the  great  hall,  they  passed 
to  the  chamber  of  reconciliation  and  of  silence." 


88 

Chief  in  importance  of  his  public  services  to  his  state  was 
that  of  Senator  Douglas  in  procuring  from  Congress  a  land 
grant  to  aid  in  the  construction  of  the  Illinois  Central  railroad. 
It  is  but  justice  to  the  memory  of  his  early  colleague,  Senator 
Breese,  to  say  that  he  had  been  the  earnest  advocate  of  a  similar 
measure  in  a  former  Congress.  The  bill,  however,  which  after 
persistent  opposition  finally  became  a  law  was  introduced  and 
warmly  advocated  by  Senator  Douglas.  This  act  ceded  to  the 
State  of  Illinois,  subject  to  the  disposal  of  the  Legislature 
thereof,  "for  the  purpose  of  aiding  in  the  construction  of  a 
railroad  from  the  southern  terminus  of  the  Illinois  and  Michi- 
gan canal  to  a  point  at  or  near  the  junction  of  the  Ohio  and 
Mississippi  rivers,  with  a  branch  of  the  same  to  Chicago,  and 
another  to  Dubuque,  la.,  every  alternate  section  of  land  desig- 
nated by  even  numbers  for  six  sections  in  width  on  each  side 
of  said  road  and  its  branches."  It  is  difficult  at  this  day  to 
realize  the  importance  of  this  measure  to  the  then  sparsely 
settled  State.  The  grant  in  aggregate  was  near  three  million 
^cres,  and  was  directly  to  the  State.  After  appropriate  action 
hy  the  State  Legislature,  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company 
-was  duly  organized,  and  the  road  eventually  constructed.  The 
provision  for  the  payment  by  the  company  to  the  State  of 
;seven  per  cent  of  its  gross  annual  earnings,  is  one,  the  value 
lof  which  to  this  and  future  generations  cannot  be  overstated. 
By  wise  constitutional  provision  the  Legislature  is  forever  pro- 
hibited from  releasing  the  company  from  this  payment. 

The  completion  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  marked  the 
beginning  of .  the  era  of  marvelous  development  in  Illinois. 
The  vast  land  grant,  in  convenient  holdings,  was  soon  in  pos- 
session of  actual  settlers,  and  a  new  impetus  quickly  given  to 
all  projects  along  the  line  of  material  progress.  During  the 
five  years  immediately  succeeding  the  passage  of  the  bill,  the 
population  of  Illinois  increased  from  less  than  nine  hundred 
thousand  to  near  a  million  and  a  half,  the  foundations  were 
firmly  laid  for  the  present  unsurpassed  prosperity  of  the  great 
<3entral  State.  A  recent  historian  has  truly  said  "For  this, 
if  for  no  other  public  service  to  his  State,  the  name  of  Douglas 
was  justly  entitled  to  preservation  by  the  erection  of  that 
splendid  monumental  column  which  overlooking  the  blue  waters 
of  Lake  Michigan,  also  overlooks  for  long  distance  that  iron 
highway  which  was  in  no  small  degree  the  triumph  of  his  legis- 
lative forecast  and  genius." 

The  measure  now  to  be  mentioned  aroused  deeper  atten- 
tion— more  anxious  concern — throughout  the  entire  country 
than  any  with  which  the  name  of  Douglas  has  yet  been  closely 
associated.  It  pertained  directly  to  slavery,  the  "bone  of  con- 
tention" between  the  North  and  the  South — the  one  dangerous 
quantity  in  our  national  politics — from  the  establishment  ^^ 
the  government.      Beginning  with  its  recognition,  though  not 


89 

in  direct  terms,  iu  the  Federal  Constitution,  it  had  through  two 
generations  in  the  interest  of  peace  been  the  subject  of  repeated 
compromise. 

As  chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Territories,  Mr. 
Douglas  in  the  early  days  of  1854  reported  a  bill  providing  for 
the  organization  of  the  territories  of  Nebraska  and  Kansas. 
This  measure,  which  so  suddenly  arrested  public  attention, 
is  known  in  our  political  history  as  the  "Kansas-Nebraska  bill." 
Among  its  provisions  was  one  repealing  the  I\Iissouri  Compro- 
mise or  restriction  of  1820.  The  end  sought  by  the  repeal  was, 
as  stated  by  Mr.  Douglas,  to  leave  the  people  of  said  territories 
respectively  to  determine  the  question  of  the  introduction  or 
exclusion  of  slavery  for  themselves;  in  other  words,  "to  regu- 
late their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way  subject  only 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  The  principle  stren- 
uously contended  for  was  that  of  "popular  sovereignty"  or 
non-intervention  by  Congress,  in  the  affairs  of  the  territories. 
In  closing  the  protracted  and  exciting  debate  just  prior  to  the 
passage  of  the  bill  in  the  Senate,  he  said:  "There  is  another 
reason  why  I  desire  to  see  this  principle  recognized  as  a  rule 
of  action  in  all  time  to  come.  It  will  have  the  effect  to  destroy 
all  sectional  parties  and  sectional  agitation.  If  you  withdraw 
the  slavery  question  from  the  halls  of  Congress  and  the  political 
arena,  and  commit  it  to  the  arbitrament  of  those  who  are  im- 
mediately interested  in,  and  alone  responsible  for  its  conse- 
quences there  is  nothing  left  out  of  which  sectional  parties 
can  be  organized.  When  the  people  of  the  north  shall  all  be 
rallied  under  one  banner,  and  the  whole  south  marshalled 
under  another  banner,  and  each  section  excited  to  frenzy  and 
madness  by  hostility  to  the  institutions  of  the  other,  then 
the  patriot  may  well  tremble  for  the  perpetuity  of  the  Union. 
Withdraw  the  slavery  question  from  the  political  arena  and 
remove  it  to  the  states  and  territories,  each  to  decide  for  itself, 
and  such  a  catastrophe  can  never  happen." 

These  utterances  of  little  more  than  half  a  century  ago, 
fall  strangely  upon  our  ears  at  this  day.  In  the  light  of  all  that 
has  occurred  in  the  long  reach  of  years,  how  significant  the 
words:  "No  man  is  wiser  than  events."  Likewise,  "the 
actions  of  men  are  to  be  judged  by  the  light  surrounding  them 
at  the  time,  not  by  the  knowledge  that  comes  after  the  fact." 
The  immediate  effect  of  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
bill  was  directly  the  reverse  of  that  so  confidently  predicted 
by  Mr.  Douglas.  The  era  of  concord  between  the  north  and 
th€  south  did  not  return.  The  slavery  question,  instead  of 
being  relegated  to  the  recently  organized  territories  for  final 
settlement,  at  once  assumed  the  dimensions  of  a  great  national 
issue.  The  country  at  large,  instead  of  a  single  territory,  be- 
crae  the  theater  of  excited  discussion.  The  final  determina- 
tion was  to  be  not  that  of  a  territory,  but  of  the  entire  people. 


90 

One  significant  effect  of  the  passage  of  the  bill  was  the 
immediate  disruption  of  the  Whig  party.  As  a  great  national 
organization,  of  which  Clay  and  Webster  had  been  eminent 
leaders,  and  Harrison  and  Taylor  successful  candidates  for  the 
presidency,  it  now  passes  into  history.  Upon  its  ruins,  the 
Republican  party  at  once  came  into  being.  Under  the  leader- 
ship of  Fremont  as  its  candidate,  and  opposition  by  congres- 
sional intervention  to  slavery  extension  as  its  chief  issue,  it 
was  a  formidable  antagonist  to  the  Democratic  party  in  the 
presidential  contest  of  1856.  Mr.  Buchanan  had  defeated 
Douglas  in  the  nominating  convention  of  his  party  that  year. 
His  absence  from  the  country,  as  minister  to  England,  during 
the  exciting  events  just  mentioned,  it  was  thought  would  make 
him  a  safer  candidate  than  his  chief  competitor,  Mr.  Douglas. 
He  had  been  in  no  manner  identified  with  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
bill,  or  the  stormy  events  which  immediately  followed  its 
passage.  In  his  letter  of  acceptance,  however,  Mr.  Buchanan 
had  given  his  unqualified  approval  of  his  party  platform  which 
recognized  and  adopted  the  principle  contained  in  the  organic 
law  establishing  the  territories  of  Nebraska  and  Kansas  as 
embodying  the  only  "sound  and  safe  solution  of  the  slavery 
question."  Upon  the  principle  here  declared,  issue  was  joined 
by  his  political  opponents,  and  the  battle  fought  out  to  the 
bitter  end. 

Although  Mr.  Douglas  had  met  personal  defeat  in  his 
aspiration  to  the  Presidency,  the  principle  of  "non-intervention 
by  Congress"  in  the  affairs  of  the  territories,  for  which  he  had 
so  earnestly  contended,  had  been  triumphant  both  in  the  con- 
vention of  the  party,  and  at  the  polls.  This  principle,  in  its 
application  to  Kansas,  was  soon  to  be  put  to  the  test.  From  its 
organization,  that  territory  had  been  a  continuous  scene  of 
disorder  often  of  violence.  In  rapid  succession  three  governors 
appointed  by  the  President  had  resigned  and  departed  the 
territory,  each  confessing  his  inability  to  maintain  public  order. 
The  struggle  for  mastery  between  the  free  state  advocates  and 
their  adversaries  arrested  the  attention  of  the  entire  country. 
It  vividly  recalled  the  bloody  forays  read  of  in  the  old  chron- 
icles of  hostile  clans  upon  the  Scottish  border. 

The  "parting  of  the  ways"  between  Senator  Douglas  and 
President  Buchanan  was  now  reached.  The  latter  had  received 
the  cordial  support  of  Mr.  Douglas  in  the  election  which  ele- 
vated him  to  the  presidency.  His  determined  opposition  to  the 
re-election  of  Douglas  became  apparent  as  the  senatorial  canvass 
progressed.  The  incidents  now  to  be  related  will  explain  this 
hostility,  as  well  as  bring  to  the  front  one  of  the  distinctive 
questions  upon  which  much  stress  was  laid  in  the  subsequent 
debates  between  Douglas  and  Lincoln. 

A  statesman  of  national  reputation,  Hon.  Robert  J.  Walker, 
was  at  length  appointed  Governor  of  Kansas.    During  his  brief 


91 

administration  a  convention  assembled  without  his  co-operation 
at  Lecompton,  and  formulated  a  constitution  under  which  ap- 
plication was  soon  made  for  the  admission  of  Kansas  into  the 
Union.  This  convention  was  in  part  composed  of  non-residents, 
and  in  no  sense  retiected  the  wishes  of  the  majority  of  the  bona 
fide  residents  of  the  territory.  The  salient  feature  of  the  con- 
stitution was  that  establishing  slavery.  The  constitution  was 
not  submitted  by  the  convention  to  popular  vote,  but  in  due 
time  forwarded  to  the  President,  and  by  him  laid  before  Con- 
gress, accompanied  by  a  recommendation  for  its  approval,  and 
the  early  admission  of  the  new  state  into  the  Union, 

When  the  Lecompton  constitution  came  before  the  Senate, 
it  at  once  encountered  the  formidable  opposition  of  ]\Ir.  Doug- 
las. In  unmeasured  terms  he  denounced  it  as  fraudulent,  as 
antagonistic  to  the  wishes  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  and  sub- 
versive of  the  basic  principle  upon  which  the  territory  had  been 
organized.  In  the  attitude  just  assumed,  Mr.  Douglas  at  once 
found  himself  in  line  with  the  Republicans,  and  in  opposition 
to  the  administration  he  had  helped  to  place  in  power.  The 
breach  thus  created  was  destined  to  remain  unhealed.  More- 
over, his  declaration  of  hostility  to  the  Lecompton  constitution 
was  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  years  of  close  political  affilia- 
tion with  southern  Democratic  statesmen.  From  that  moment, 
Mr,  Douglas  lost  prestige  as  a  national  leader  of  his  party.  In 
more  than  one-half  of  the  Democratic  states  he  ceased  to  be 
regarded  as  a  probable  or  even  possible  candidate  for  the 
Presidential  succession.  The  hostility  thus  engendered  fol- 
lowed him  to  the  Charleston  convention  of  I86O1  and  through- 
out the  exciting  presidential  contest  which  followed.  But  the 
humiliation  of  defeat,  brought  about  as  he  believed  by  personal 
hostility  to  himself,  was  yet  in  the  future.  In  the  attempted 
admission  of  Kansas  under  the  Lecompton  constitution,  Mr. 
Douglas  was  triumphant  over  the  administration  and  his  former 
political  associates  from  the  south.  Under  what  w^as  known 
as  the  "English  Amendment,"  the  obnoxious  constitution  was 
referred  to  the  people  of  Kansas,  and  by  them  overwhelmingly 
rejected. 

The  close  of  this  controversy  in  the  early  months  of  1858 
left  Mr.  Douglas  in  a  position  of  much  embarrassment.  He 
had  incurred  the  active  hostility  of  the  President,  and  in  large 
measure  of  his  adherents,  without  gaining  the  future  aid  of 
his  late  associates,  in  the  defeat  of  the  Lecompton  constitution. 
His  senatorial  term  was  nearing  its  close,  and  his  political  life 
depended  upon  his  re-election.  "With  an  united  and  aggressive 
enemy,  ably  led.  in  his  front ;  his  own  party  hopelessly  divided — 
one  faction  seeking  his  defeat,  it  can  readily  be  seen  that  his 
political  pathway  was  by  no  means  one  of  peace.  Such,  in 
brief  outline,   were   the   political   conditions   when,,  upon  the 


92 

adjourument  of  Congress,  Mr.  Douglas  returned  to  Illinois  in 
July,  1858,  and  made  public  announcement  of  his  candidacy 
for  re-election. 

In  his  speech  at  Springfield,  June  17,  accepting  the  nom- 
ination of  his  party  for  the  Senate,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  uttered 
the  words  which  have  since  become  historic.  They  are  quoted 
at  length,  as  they  soon  furnished  the  text  for  his  severe  ar- 
raignment by  Mr.  Douglas  in  deba-te.  The  words  are:  "We  are 
now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with 
the  avowed  object  and  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to 
slavery  agitation.  Under  the  operation  of  that  policy,  that 
agitation  has  not  only  not  ceased,  but  has  constantly  augmented. 
In  my  opinion  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been 
reached  and  passed.  'A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand.'  I  believe  this  country  cannot  endure  permanently  half 
slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved, 
I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease 
to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other. 
Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread 
of  it  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief 
that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction  or  its  advocates 
will  push  it  forward  until  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all 
the  states,  old  as  well  as  new,  north  as  well  as  south." 

This,  at  the  time,  was  a  bold  utterance,  and  it  was  believed 
by  many  would  imperil  Mr.  Lincoln's  chances  for  election.  Mr. 
Blaine,  in  his  ' '  Twenty  Years  of  Congress, ' '  says :  ' '  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  been  warned  by  intimate  friends  to  whom  he  had  com- 
municated the  contents  of  his  speech  in  advance  of  its  delivery, 
that  he  was  treading  on  dangerous  ground,  that  he  would  be 
misrepresented  as  a  disuuionist,  and  that  he  might  fatally 
damage  the  Republican  party  by  making  its  existence  synony- 
mous with  a  destruction  of  the  government." 

The  opening  speech  of  Mr.  Douglas  at  Chicago  a  few 
days  later,  sounding  the  keynote  of  his  campaign,  was  in  the 
main  an  arraignment  of  his  opponent  for  an  attempt  to  pre- 
cipitate an  internecine  conflict,  and  array  in  deadly  hostility 
the  north  against  the  south.  He  said:  "In  other  words,  Mr. 
Lincoln  advocates  boldly  and  clearly  a  war  of  sections,  a  Avar 
of  the  north  against  the  south,  of  the  free  states  against  the 
slave  states,  a  war  of  extermination,  to  be  continued  relent- 
lessly until  the  one  or  the  other  shall  be  subdued,  and  all  the 
states  shall  either  become  free  or  become  slave." 

The  two  speeches,  followed  by  others  of  like  tenor,  aroused 
public  interest  in  the  State  as  it  had  never  been  before.  The 
desire  to  hear  the  candidates  from  the  same  platform  became 
general.  The  proposal  for  joint  debate  came  from  ]\Ir.  Lincoln 
on  the  24th  day  of  July  and  was  soon  thereafter  accepted. 
Seven  joint  meetings  were  agreed  upon,  the  first  to  be  at 
Ottawa,  August  21,  and  the  last  at  Alton,  October  15.     The 


93 

meetings  were  held  in  the  open,  and  at  each  place  immense 
crowds  were  in  attendance.  The  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln  largely 
preponderated  in  the  northern  portion  of  the  State,  those  of 
Mr.  Douglas  in  the  southern,  while  in  the  center  the  partisans 
of  the  respective  candidates  were  apparently  equal  in  numbers. 
The  interest  never  flagged  for  a  moment  from  the  beginning 
to  the  close.  The  debate  was  upon  a  high  plane ;  each  candi- 
date enthusiastically  applauded  by  his  friends,  and  respectfully 
heard  by  his  opponents.  The  speakers  were  men  of  dignified 
presence,  their  bearing  such  as  to  challenge  respect  in  any  as- 
semblage. There  was  nothing  of  the  "grotesque"  about  the 
one,  nothing  of  the  "political  juggler"  about  the  other.  Both 
were  deeply  impressed  with  the  gravity  of  the  questions  at 
issue,  and  of  what  might  prove  their  far  reaching  consequence 
to  the  country.  Kindly  reference  by  each  speaker  to  the  other 
characterized  the  debates  from  the  beginning.  "My  friend 
Lincoln,"  and  "My  friend,  the  Judge,"  were  expressions  of 
constant  occurrence  during  the  debates.  "While  each  mercilessly 
attacked  the  political  utterances  of  the  other,  good  feeling  in 
the  main  prevailed.  Something  being  pardoned  to  the  spirit 
of  debate,  the  amenities  were  well  observed.  They  had  been 
personally  well  known  to  each  other  for  many  years,  had  served 
together  in  the  Legislature  Avhen  the  State  capital  was  at 
Vandalia,  and  at  a  later  date,  Lincoln  had  appeared  before  the 
Supreme  Court  when  Douglas  was  one  of  the  judges.  The 
amusing  allusions  to  each  other  were  taken  in  good  part.  Mr. 
Lincoln's  profound  humor  is  now  a  proverb.  It  never  appeared 
to  better  advantage  than  during  these  debates.  In  criticising 
Mr.  Lincoln's  attack  upon  Chief  Justice  Taney  and  his  asso- 
ciates for  the  "Dred  Scott  decision,"  Douglas  declared  it  to 
be  an  attempt  to  secure  a  reversal  of  the  high  tribunal  by  an 
appeal  to  a  town  meeting.  It  reminded  him  of  the  saying  of 
Colonel  Strode  that  the  judicial  system  of  Illinois  was  perfect, 
except  that  "there  should  be  an  appeal  alloAved  from  the 
Supreme  Court  to  two  justices  of  the  peace."  Lincoln  replied: 
"That  was  when  you  were  on  the  bench.  Judge."  Referring 
to  Douglas'  allusion  to  him  as  a  kind,  amiable  and  intelligent 
gentleman,  he  said:  "Then  as  the  Judge  has  complimented  me 
with  these  pleasant  titles,  I  was  a  little  taken  for  it  came  from 
a  great  man.  I  was  not  very  much  accustomed  to  flattery  and 
it  came  the  sweeter  to  me.  I  was  like  the  Hoosier  with  the 
ginger  bread,  when  he  said  he  reckoned  he  loved  it  better  and 
got  less  of  it  than  any  other  man."  Mr.  Douglas,  referring 
to  the  alliance  between  the  Republicans  and  the  Federal  office- 
holders, said:  "T  shall  deal  with  this  allied  army  just  as  the 
Russian  dealt  with  the  allies  at  Sebastopol,  the  Russians  when 
they  fired  a  broadside  did  not  stop  to  inquire  -whether  it  hit  a 
Frenchman,  an  Englishman  or  a  Turk.  Nor  will  I  stop  to  inquire 
whether  my  blows  hit  the  Republican  leaders  or  their  allies  who 


94 

hold  the  Federal  offices."  To  which  Lincoln  replied:  "I  beg 
the  Judge  will  indulge  us  while  we  remind  him  that  the  allies 
took  Sebastopol." 

In  opening  the  debate  at  Ottawa,  Mr.  Douglas  said:  "In 
the  remarks  I  have  made  on  the  platform  and  the  position  of 
Mr.  Lincoln,  I  mean  nothing  personally  disrespectful  or  unkind 
to  that  gentleman.  I  have  known  him  for  twenty-five  years. 
There  were  many  points  of  sympathy  between  us  when  we  first 
got  acquainted.  We  were  both  comparatively  boys,  and  both 
struggling  with  poverty  in  a  strange  land.  I  was  a  school 
teacher  in  the  town  of  Winchester,  and  he  a  fiourishing  grocery 
keeper  in  the  town  of  Salem.  He  was  more  successful  in  his 
occupation  than  I  was  in  mine,  and  hence  more  fortunate  in 
this  world's  goods.  Lincoln  is  one  of  those  peculiar  men  who 
perform  with  admirable  skill  everything  which  they  undertake. 
I  made  as  good  a  school  teacher  as  I  could,  and  when  a  cabinet 
maker  I  made  a  good  bedstead  and  table,  although  my  old  boss 
said  I  succeeded  better  with  bureaus  and  secretaries  than  any- 
thing else.  I  met  him  in  the  Legislature  and  had  a  sympathy 
with  him  because  of  the  up  hill  struggle  we  both  had  in  life. 
He  was  then  just  as  good  at  telling  an  anecdote  as  now.  He 
could  beat  any  of  the  boys  wrestling,  or  running  a  foot  race, 
in  pitching  quoits  or  tossing  a  copper,  and  the  dignity  and 
impartiality  with  which  he  presided  at  a  horse  race,  or  a  fist 
fight,  excited  the  admiration  and  won  the  praise  of  everybody. 
I  sympathized  with  him  because  he  was  struggling  with  diffi- 
culties, and  so  was  I."  To  which  Mr.  Lincoln  replied:  "The 
judge  is  woefully  at  fault  about  his  friend  Lincoln  being  a 
grocery  keeper.  I  don't  know  as  it  would  be  a  sin  if  I  had 
been ;  but  he  is  mistaken.  Lincoln  never  kept  a  grocery  any- 
where in  the  world.  It  is  true  that  Lincoln  did  work  the  latter 
part  of  one  winter  in  a  little  still  house  up  at  the  head  of  a 
hollow." 

The  serious  phases  of  the  debates  will  now  be  considered. 
The  opening  speech  was  by  Mr.  Douglas.  That  he  possessed 
rare  power  as  a  debater,  all  who  heard  him  can  bear  witness. 
Mr.  Blaine  in  his  history  says:  "His  mind  was  fertile  in  re- 
sources. He  was  master  of  logic.  In  that  peculiar  style  of 
debate  which  in  its  intensity  resembles  a  physical  combat,  he 
had  no  equal.  He  spoke  with  extraordinary  readiness.  He 
used  good  English,  terse,  pointed,  vigorous.  He  disregarded 
the  adornments  of  rhetoric.  He  never  cited  historic  prece- 
dents except  from  the  domain  of  American  politics.  Inside 
that  field,  his  knowledge  was  comprehensive,  minute,  critical. 
He  could  lead  a  crowd  almost  irresistibly  to  his  own  con- 
clusions." 

Douglas  was,  in  very  truth,  imbued  with  little  of  mere 
sentiment.  He  gave  little  time  to  discussions  belonging  solely 
to  the  realm  of  the  speculative  or  the  abstract.     He  was  in 


95 

no  sense  a  dreamer.  What  Coleridge  has  defined  wisdom: 
"Common  sense,  in  an  uncommon  degree" — was  his.  In 
phrase  the  simplest  and  most  telling,  he  struck  at  once  at  the 
very  core  of  the  controversy.  Possibly  no  man  was  ever  less 
inclined  "to  darken  counsel  with  words  without  knowledge." 
Positive,  and  aggressive,  to  the  last  degree,  he  never  sought 
"by  indirections  to  find  directions  out."  In  statesmanship, 
in  all  that  pertained  to  human  affairs,  he  was  intensely  prac- 
tical. With  him,  in  the  words  of  Macaulay,  "one  acre  in 
Middlesex  is  worth  a  principality  in  Utopia." 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  recall,  after  the  lapse  of  half  a  century, 
the  two  men  as  they  shook  hands  upon  the  speaker's  stand, 
just  before  the  opening  of .  the  debates  that  were  to  mark 
an  epoch  in  American  history.  Stephen  A.  Douglas !  Abraham 
Lincoln!  As  they  stood  side  by  side  and  looked  out  upon 
"the  sea  of  upturned  faces" — it  was  indeed  a  picture  to  live 
in  the  memory  of  all  who  witnessed  it.  The  one  stood  for  "the 
old  ordering  of  things,"  in  an  emphatic  sense  for  the  govern- 
ment as  established  by  the  fathers,  with  all  its  compromises. 
The  other,  recognizing,  equally  ^vith  his  opponent,  the  binding 
force  of  constitutional  obligation,  yet  looking  away  from 
present  surroundings,  "felt  the  inspiration  of  the  coming  of 
the  grander  day."  As  has  been  well  said:  "The  one  faced 
the  past — the  other  the  future." 

"Often  do  the  spirits  of  great  events 
Stride  on  before  the  events, 
And  in  today,  already  walks  tomorrow." 

Few  survive  of  the  vast  assemblages  who  listened  spell- 
bound to  the  impassioned  words  of  the  masterful  debaters.  The 
conditions  mentioned  by  Webster  as  essential  to  true  eloquence 
had  arisen:  "The  orator  and  the  occasion  had  met."  The 
people  of  the  entire  State  were  aroused,  the  interest  profound, 
the  excitement '  at  times  intense.  The  occasion  was  indeed 
worthy  the  great  orators ;  the  orators  worthy  the  great  oc- 
casion. The  debaters  were  to  note  a  mighty  epoch  in  Ameri- 
can politics. 

The  immediate  arena  of  the  struggle  was  Illinois,  and  the 
prize  of  victory,  a  senatorship.  But  to  those  who  read  the 
signs,  aright,  it  was  but  the  prelude  to  the  contest  for  the  Presi- 
dency soon  to  follow.  Within  less  than  two  years  from  the 
opening  debate,  Lincoln  and  Douglas  were  opposing  candi- 
dates for  the  Presidency,  and  the  area  of  the  struggle  enlarged 
from  a  state  to  a  nation.  And  following  close  upon  its  deter- 
mination, the  momentous  questions  involved  were  transferred 
from  hustings  and  from  Senate  to  find  bloody  arbitrament  on 
the  field. 

The  name  of  Lincoln  is  now  a  household  word.  But  little 
can  be  written  of  him  that  is  not  already  known  to  the  Avorld. 
Nothing  that  can  bo  uttered  or  withheld  can  add  to.  or  detract 


96 

from,  his  imperishable  fame.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that 
his  great  opportunity  and  fame  came  after  the  stirring  events 
separated  from  us  by  the  passing  of  fifty  years.  It  is  not 
the  Lincoln  of  history,  but  Lincoln,  the  country  lawyer,  the 
debater,  the  candidate  of  his  party  for  political  office,  with 
whom  we  have  now  to  do.  Born  in  Kentucky,  much  of  his 
early  life  was  spent  in  Indiana,  and  all  of  his  professional 
and  public  life  up  to  his  election  to  the  Presidency,  in  Illinois. 
His  early  opportunities  for  study,  like  those  of  Douglas,  were 
meagre  indeed.  Neither  had  had  the  advantage  of  the  thor- 
ough training  of  the  schools.  Of  both  it  might  truly  have  been 
said:  "They  knew  men  rather  than  books."  From  his  log 
cabin  home  upon  the  Sangamon,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  in  his  early 
manhood  volunteered,  and  was  made  captain  of  his  company, 
in  what  was  so  well  known  to  the  early  settlers  of  Illinois, 
as  "the  Black  Hawk  War."  Later  he  was  surveyor  of  his 
county,  and  three  times  a  member  of  the  State  Legislature. 
At  the  time  of  the  debates  with  Senator  Douglas,  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  for  many  years  been  a  resident  of  Springfield,  and  a  rec- 
ognized leader  of  the  bar.  As  an  advocate  he  had  probably 
no  superior  in  the  State.  During  the  days  of  the  Whig  party 
he  was  an  earnest  exponent  of  its  principles,  and  an  able  cham- 
pion of  its  candidates.  As  such,  he  had  in  successive  contests 
eloquently  presented  the  claims  of  Harrison,  Clay,  Taylor  and 
Scott  to  the  Presidency.  In  1846  he  was  elected  a  Representa- 
tive in  Congress,  and  upon  his  retirement  he  resumed  the 
active  practice  of  his  profession.  Upon  the  dissolution  of  the 
Whig  party,  he  cast  in  his  fortunes  with  the  new  political 
organization,  and  was  in  Yery  truth  one  of  the  builders  of  the 
Republican  party.  At  its  first  national  convention  in  1856, 
he  received  a  large  vote  for  nomination  to  the  vice  presidency, 
and  during  the  memorable  campaign  of  that  year  canvassed 
the  State  in  advocacy  of  the  election  of  Fremont  and  Dayton, 
the   candidates   of  the   Philadelphia   convention. 

In  the  year  1858,  that  of  the  great  debates,  Mr.  Douglas 
was  the  better  known  of  the  opposing  candidates  in  the  country 
at  large.  In  a  speech  then  recently  delivered  in  Springfield, 
Mr.  Lincoln  said:  "There  is  still  another  disadvantage  under 
which  we  labor  and  to  which  I  will  ask  your  attention-  It 
arises  out  of  the  relative  positions  of  the  two  persons,  who 
stand  before  the  State  as  candidates  for  the  Senate. 

"Senator  Douglas  is  of  world  wide  renown.  All  the 
anxious  politicians  of  his  party  have  been  looking  upon  him 
as  certainly  at  no  distant  day  to  be  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  They  have  seen  in  his  ruddy,  jolly,  fruitful  face, 
postoffices,  land  offices,  marshalships,  and  cabinet  appoint- 
ments, and  foreign  missions,  bursting  and  sprouting  out  in 
wonderful  exuberance,  ready  to  be  laid  hold  of  by  their  greedy 
hands.  On  the  contrary,  nobody  has  ever  seen  in  my  poor, 
lean,  lank  face  that  any  cabbages  were  sprouting  out." 


97 

Both,  however,  were  personally  well  known  in  Illinois. 
Each  was  by  unanimous  nomination  the  candidate  of  his  party. 
Mr.  Douglas  had  known  sixteen  years  of  continuous  service 
in  one  or  the  other  House  of  Congress.  In  the  Senate,  he  had 
held  high  debate  Avith  Seward,  Sumner  and  Chase  from  the 
north,  and  during  the  last  session,  since  he  had  assumed  a 
position  of  antagonism  to  the  Buchanan  administration,  had 
repeatedly  measured  swords  with  Toombs,  Benjamin,  and  Jef- 
ferson Davis,  chief  among  the  great  debaters  from  the  south. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  services  in  Congress  had  been  limited  to  a 
single  term  in  the  lower  House,  and  his  great  fame  was  yet 
to  be  achieved,  not  as  a  legislator,  but  as  chief  executive  during 
the  most  critical  years  of  our  history. 

Such  in  brief  were  the  opposing  candidates  as  they  entered 

the  lists  of  debate  at  Ottawa  on  the  twenty-first  day  of  August, 

1858.     Both  in  the  prime  of  manhood,  thoroughly  equipped  for 

the  conflict,  and  surrounded  by    throngs    of    devoted  friends. 

Both  gifted  with  marvelous  forensic  powers,  and  alike  hopeful 

as  to  the  result.     Each  recognizing  fully  the  strength  of  his 

opponent,   his   own  powers  were   constantly   at   their  highest 

tension. 

"The  blood  more  stirs 
To  rouse  a  lion  than  to  start  a  hare." 

In  opening,  Mr.  Douglas  made  brief  reference  to  the  politic 
cal  condition  of  the  country  prior  to  the  year  1854.  He  said: 
"The  Whig  and  the  Democratic  were  the  two  great  parties 
then  in  existence ;  both  national  and  patriotic,  advocating  prin- 
ciples that  were  universal  in  their  application ;  while  these 
parties  differed  in  regard  to  banks,  tariff,  and  sub-treasury,, 
they  agreed  on  the  slavery  question  which  now  agitates  the 
Union.  They  had  adopted  the  compromise  measures  of  1850 
as  the  basis  of  a  full  solution  of  the  slavery  question  in  all 
its  forms,  that  these  measures  had  received  the  endorsement 
of  both  parties  in  their  national  convention  of  1852,  thus  affirm- 
ing the  right  of  the  people  of  each  state  and  territory  to 
decide  as  to  their  domestic  institutions  for  themselves ;  that 
this  principle  was  embodied  in  the  bill  reported  by  me  in 
1854  for  the  organization  of  the  territories  of  Kansas  and 
Nebraska ;  in  order  that  there  might  be  no  misunderstand- 
ing, these  words  were  inserted  in  that  bill:  "It  is  the  true 
intent  and  meaning  of  this  act,  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any 
state  or  territory,  or  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the 
people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domes- 
tic institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  federal 
Constitution." 

Turning  then  to  his  opponent,  he  said:  "I  desire  to  know 
whether  Mr.  Lincoln  today  stands  as  he  did  in  1854  in  favor 
of  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the  fugitive  slave  law ;  whether 
he  stands  pledged  today  as  he  did  in  ]854  against  the  admission 


98 

of  any  more  slave  states  into  the  Union,  even  if  the  people  want 
them;  whether  he  stands  pledged  against  the  admission  of  a 
new  state  into  the  Union  with  such  a  constitution  as  the  people 
of  that  state  may  see  fit  to  make.  I  want  to  know  whether 
he  stands  today  pledged  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  tlie 
District  of  Columbia;  I  desire  to  know  whether  he  stands 
pledged  to  prohibit  slavery  in  all  the  territories  of  the  United 
States  north  as  well  as  south  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line. 
I  desire  him  to  answer  whether  he  is  opposed  to  acquisition 
of  any  more  territory  unless  slavery  is  prohibited  therein.  I 
want  his  answer  to  these  questions." 

Mr.  Douglas  then  addressed  himself  to  the  already  quoted 
words  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Springfield  speech  commencing:  "A 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  He  declared  the 
government  had  existed  for  seventy  years  divided  into  free 
and  slave  states  as  our  fathers  made  it;  that  at  the  time  the 
Constitution  was  framed  there  were  thirteen  states,  twelve  of 
which  were  slave  holding,  and  one  a  free  state ;  that  if  the 
doctrine  preached  by  Mr.  Lincoln  that  all  should  be  free,  or 
all  slave  had  prevailed  the  twelve  would  have  overruled  the 
one,  and  slavery  would  have  been  established  by  the  Constitu- 
tion on  every  inch  of  the  republic,  instead  of  being  left  as  our 
fathers  wisely  left  it  for  each  state  to  decide  for  itself."  He 
then  declared  that  "uniformity  in  the  local  laws  and  institu- 
tions of  the  different  states  is  neither  possible  nor  desirable; 
that  if  uniformity  had  been  adopted  when  the  government  was 
■established  it  must  inevitably  have  been  the  uniformity  of 
slavery  everywhere,  or  the  uniformity  of  negro  citizenship  and 
negro  equality  everywhere.  I  hold  that  humanity  and  Chris- 
tianity both  require  that  the  negro  shall  have  and  enjoy  every 
right  and  every  privilege  and  every  immunity  consistent  with 
the  safety  of  the  society  in  which  he  lives.  The  question  then 
arises,  what  rights  and  privileges  are  consistent  with  the  public 
good?  This  is  a  question  which  each  state  and  each  territory 
must  decide  for  itself.     Illinois  has  decided  it  for  herself." 

He  then  said :  *  *  Now,  my  friends,  if  we  will  only  act  con- 
scientiously upon  this  great  principle  of  popular  sovereignty, 
it  guarantees  to  each  state  and  territory  the  right  to  do  as  it 
pleases  on  all  things  local  and  domestic  instead  of  Congress 
interfering,  we  will  continue  at  peace  one  with  another.  This 
doctrine  of  Mr.  Lincoln  of  uniformity  among  the  institutions 
of  the  different  states  is  a  new  doctrine  never  dreamed  of 
by  "Washington,  Madison  or  the  framers  of  the  government. 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party  set  themselves  up  as  wiser  than  the 
founders  of  the  government  which  has  flourished  for  seventy 
years  under  the  principle  of  popular  sovereignty,  recognizing 
the  right  of  each  state  to  do  as  it  pleased.  Under  that  prin- 
ciple, we  have  grown  from  a  nation  of  three  or  four  millions 
to  one  of  thirty  millions  of  people.      "We  have  crossed  the 


99 

mountains  and  filled  up  the  whole  northwest,  turning  the  prairie 
into  a  garden,  and  building  up  churches  and  schools,  thus 
spreading  civilization  and  Christianity  where  before  there  was 
nothing  but  barbarism.  Under  that  principle  we  have  become 
from  a  feeble  nation  the  most  powerful  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  if  we  only  adhere  to  that  principle  we  can  go  for- 
ward increasing  in  territory,  in  power,  in  strength  and  in  glory 
until  the  Republic  of  America  shall  be  the  north  Star  that 
shall  guide  the  friends  of  freedom  throughout  the  civilized 
world.  I  believe  that  this  new  doctrine  preached  by  Mr. 
Lincoln  will  dissolve  the  Union  if  it  succeeds;  trying  to  array 
all  the  northern  states  in  one  body  against  the  southern ;  to  ex- 
cite a  sectional  war  between  the  free  states  and  the  slave  states  in 
order  that  the  one  or  the  other  may  be  driven  to  the  wall." 

Mr.  Lincoln  said  in  reply :  "I  think  and  shall  try  to  show 
tha,t  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  is  wrong;  wrong 
in  its  direct  effect,  letting  slavery  into  Kansas  and  Nebraska, 
wrong  in  its  prospective  principle,  allowing  it  to  spread  to 
every  other  part  of  the  wide  world  where  men  can  be  found 
inclined  to  take  it.  This  declared  indifference,  but  I  must 
think  covert  zeal  for  the  spread  of  slavery,  I  cannot  but  hate. 
I  hate  it  because  of  the  monstrous  injustice  of  slavery  itself. 
I  hate  it  because  it  deprives  our  republic  an  example  of  its 
just  influence  in  the  world,  enables  the  enemies  of  free  institu- 
tions with  plausibility  to  taunt  us  as  hypocrites.  I  have  no 
prejudices  against  the  southern  people ;  they  are  just  what 
we  would  be  in  their  situation.  If  slavery  did  not  exist  among 
them,  they  would  not  introduce  it.  If  it  did  now  exist  amongst 
us  we  would  not  instantly  give  it  up.  This  I  believe  of  the 
masses  north  and  south.  When  the  southern  people  tell  us 
they  are  no  more  responsible  for  the  origin  of  slavery  than 
we,  I  acknowledge  the  fact.  "When  it  is  said  that  the  institu- 
tion exists,  and  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  rid  of  it  in  any 
satisfactory  w^ay^  I  can  understand  and  appreciate  the  same. 
I  surely  will  not  blame  them  for  what  I  should  not  know  how 
to  do  myself.  If  all  earthly  powers  were  given  me,  I  should 
not  know  what  to  do  as  to  the  existing  institution." 

Declaring  that  he  did  not  advocate  freeing  the  negroes, 
and  making  them  our  political  and  social  equals,  but  suggest- 
ing that  gradual  systems  of  emancipation  might  be  adopted 
by  the  states,  he  added:  "But  for  their  tardiness  in  this,  I 
will  not  undertake  to  judge  our  brethren  of  the  South.  But  all 
this  to  my  judgment  furnishes  no  more  excuse  for  permitting 
slavery  to  go  into  our  free  territory  than  it  would  for  the  re- 
viving the  African  slave  trade  by  law."  He  then  added:  "I 
have  no  purpose  directly  or  indirectly  to  interfere  with  the 
institution  of  slavery  in  the  states  where  it  exists.  I  believe 
I  have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so,  and  I  have  no  inclination  to 
do  so.  I  have  no  purpose  to  introduce  political  and  social 
equality  between  the  white  and  black  races. 


100 


i  i ' 


•But  I  hold  that  notwithstanding  all  this  there  is  no 
reason  in  the  world  why  the  negro  is  not  entitled  to  all  the 
natural  rights  enumei'ated  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
the  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  1  hold 
that  he  is  as  much  entitled  to  these  as  the  white  man.  I  agree 
with  Judge  Douglas,  he  is  not  my  equal  in  many  respects, 
certainly  not  in  color,  perhaps  not  in  moral  and  intellectual 
endowment.  But  in  the  right  to  eat  the  bread,  without  the 
leave  of  anybody,  which  his  own  hand  earns,  he  is  my  equal, 
and  the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas,  and  the  equal  of  every  living 


man." 


Referring  to  the  quotation  from  his  Springfield  speech  of 
the  words:  "A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand,"  he 
said:  "Does  the  Judge  say  it  can  stand?  If  he  does,  then 
there  is  a  ciuestion  of  veracity  not  between  him  and  me,  but 
between  the  Judge  and  an  authority  of  somewhat  higher  char- 
acter. I  leave  it  to  you  to  say  whether  in  the  history  of  our 
government  the  institution  of  slavery  has  not  failed  to  be  a 
bond  of  union,  but  on  the  contrary-  been  an  apple  of  discord 
and  an  element  of  division  in  the  house,  if  so,  then  I  have 
a  right  to  say,  that  in  regard  to  this  question  the  Union  is  a 
house  divided  against  itself;  and  when  the  Judge  reminds  me 
that  I  have  often  said  to  him  that  the  institution  of  slavery 
has  existed  for  eight}^  years  in  some  states  and  yet  it  does  not 
exist  in  some  others,  I  agree  to  that  fact,  and  I  account  for  it 
by  looking  at  the  position  in  which  our  fathers  originally  placed 
it,  restricting  it  from  the  new  territories  where  it  had  not 
gone,  and  legislating  to  cut  off  its  source  by  abrogation  of  the 
slave  trade,  thus  putting  the  seal  of  legislation  against  its 
spread;,  the  public  mind  did  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  was  in 
the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.  Now,  I  believe  if  we  could 
arrest  its  spread  and  place  it  where  Washington  and  Jefferson 
and  Madison  placed  it,  it  would  be  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction,  and  the  public  mind  would,  as  for  eighty  years 
past,  believe  that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction." 

Referring  further  to  his  Springfield  speech  he  declared 
that  he  had  no  thought  of  doing  anything  to  bring  about  a 
war  between  the  free  and  slave  states ;  that  he  had  no  thought 
in  the  world  that  he  was  doing  anything  to  bring  about  social 
and  political  equality  of  the  black  and  white  races. 

Pursuing  this  line  of  argument,  he  insisted  that  the  first 
step  in  the  conspiracy,  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill, 
followed  soon  by  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  the  latter  fitting 
perfectly  into  the  niche  left  by  the  former,  "in  such  a  case, 
we  feel  it  impossible  not  to  believe  that  Stephen  and  Franklin, 
Roger  and  James,  all  understood  one  another  from  the  begin- 
ning and  all  worked  upon  a  common  plan  or  draft  drawn 
before  the  first  blow  was  struck." 


101 

In  closing,  Mr.  Douglas,  after  indignant  denial  of  the 
charge  of  conspiracy,  said:  "1  have  lived  twenty-five  years  in 
Illinois ;  I  have  served  you  Avith  all  the  fidelity  and  ability 
which  I  possess,  and  Mr.  Jjincohi  is  at  liberty  to  attack  my 
public  action,  my  votes,  and  my  conduct,  but  when  he  dares 
to  attack  my  moral  integrity  by  a  charge  of  conspiracy  be- 
tween myself,  Chief  Justice  Taney,  and  the  Supreme  Court 
and  two  Presidents  of  the  United  States,  I  will  repel  it." 

At  Freeport,  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  opening  the  discussion,  at 
once  declared  his  readiness  to  answer  the  interrogatories  pro- 
pounded. He  said:  "I  do  not  now.  nor  ever  did,  stand  in 
favor  of  the  unconditional  repeal  of  the  fugitive  slave  law ;  I 
do  not  now,  nor  ever  did,  stand  pledged  against  the  admission 
of  any  more  slave  states  into  the  Union ;  I  do  not  stand  pledged 
against  the  admission  of  a  new  state  into  the  Union  with  such 
a  constitution  as  the  people  of  that  state  may  see  fit  to  make ; 
I  do  not  stand  today  pledged  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia;  I  do  not  stand  pledged  to  the  prohibi- 
tion of  the  slave  trade  between  the  different  states;  I  am 
impliedly,  if  not  expressly  pledged  to  a  belief  in  the  right  and 
duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  all  the  United  States 
territories." 

"Waiving  the  form  of  the  interrogatory  as  to  being  pledged, 
he  said:  "As  to  the  first  one  in  regard  to  the  fugitive  slave 
law,  I  liave  never  liesitated  to  say,  and  I  do  not  now  hesitate 
to  say,  that  I  think  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
the  people  of  the  southern  states  are  entitled  to  a  congressional 
fugitive  slave  law.  Having  said  that,  I  have  had  nothing  to 
say  in  regard  to  the  existing  fugitive  slave  law  further  than 
that  I  think  it  should  have  been  framed  so  as  to  be  free  from 
some  of  the  objections  that  pertain  to  it  without  lessening  its 
efficiency.  In  regard  to  whether  I  am  pledged  to  the  ad- 
mission of  any  more  slave  states  into  the  Union,  I  would  be 
exceedingly  glad  to  know  that  there  would  never  be  another 
slave  state  admitted  into  the  Union ;  but  I  must  add  that  if 
slavery  shall  be  kept  out  of  the  territories  during  the  terri- 
torial existence  of  any  one  given  territory,  and  then  the  people 
shall,  having  a  fair  chance  and  a  clear  field  when  they  come 
to  adopt  the  constitution,  do  such  an  extraordinary  thing  as 
to  adopt  a  slavery  constitution  uninfluenced  by  the  actual  pres- 
ence of  the  institution  among  them,  I  see  no  alternative  if  we 
own  the  countiy,  but  to  admit  them  into  the  Union.  I  should 
be  exceedingly  glad  to  see  slavery  abolished  in  the  District  of 
Columbia.  I  believe  that  Congress  possesses  constitutional 
power  to  abolish  it.  Yet,  as  a  member  of  Congress,  I  should 
not  be  in  favor  of  endeavoring  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District 
of  Columbia  unless  it  would  be  upon  these  conditions:  First, 
that  the  abolition  should  be  gradual ;  second,  that  it  should  be 
on  a  vote  of  the  majority  of  qualified  voters  in  the  district ; 


102 

third,  that  compensation  should  be  made  unwilling  owners. 
With  these  conditions,  I  confess  I  should  be  exceedingly  glad 
to  see  Congress  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and 
in  the  language  of  Henry  Clay,  'Sweep  from  our  capitol  that 
foul  blot  upon  our  nation.'  " 

These  carefully  prepared  answers  will  never  cease  to  be  of 
profound  interest  to  the  student  of  human  affairs.  They  indi- 
cate unmistakably  the  conservative  tendency  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
and  his  position  at  the  time  as  to  the  legal  status  of  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery.  But,  "Courage  mounteth  with  oc- 
casion." Five  years  later,  and  from  the  hand  that  penned  the 
answers  given,  came  the  great  proclamation  emancipating  a 
race.  "The  hour  had  struck,"  and  slavery  perished.  The 
"compromises"  upon  which  it  rested  were  in  the  mighty  up- 
heave!, but  as  the  stubble  before  the  flame. 

Recurring  to  the  Freeport  debate,  Mr.  Lincoln  propounded 
to  his  opponent  four  interrogatories,  as  follows:  "First,  if  the 
people  of  Kansas  shall  by  means  entirely  unobjectionable  in  all 
other  respects,  adopt  a  state  constitution  and  ask  admission 
into  the  Union  under  it  before  they  have  the  requisite  number 
of  inhabitants  according  to  the  bill,  some  ninety-three  thousand, 
wall  you  vote  to  admit  them?  Second,  can  the  people  of  a 
United  States  territory  in  any  lawful  way,  against  the  wish  of 
any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  from  its  limits 
prior  to  the  formation  of  a  state  constitution?  Third,  if  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  shall  decide  that  states 
cannot  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits,  are  you  in  favor  of 
acquiescing  in,  adopting  and  following  such  decision  as  a  rule 
of  political  action  ?  Fourth,  are  you  in  favor  of  acquiring  addi- 
tional territory  in  disregard  of  how  such  acquisition  may  effect 
the  nation  on  the  slavery  question?" 

The  questions  propounded  reached  the  marrow  of  the  con- 
troversy, and  were  yet  to  have  a  much  wider  field  for  discus- 
sion. This  was  especially  true  of  the  second  of  the  series. 
Upon  this,  widely  divergent,  irreconcilable,  views  were  enter- 
tained by  northern  and  southern  Democrats.  The  evidence  of 
this  is  to  be  found  in  the  respective  national  platforms  upon 
which  Mr.  Douglas  and  Mr.  Breckenridge  were  two  years  later 
rival  candidates  of  a  divided  party.  The  second  interrogatory 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  clearly  emphasized  this  conflict  of  opinion  as  it 
existed  at  the  time  of  the  debates.  It  is  but  just,  however,  to 
Mr.  Douglas,  of  whom  little  that  is  kindly  has  in  late  years  been 
spoken,  to  say,  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  question  to  caiise 
him  surprise  or  embarrassment.  It  would  be  passing  strange 
if  during  the  protracted  debates  with  Senators  representing 
extreme  and  antagonistic  views  a  matter  so  vital  as  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  act,  as  indicated  by  the  in- 
terrogatory, had  never  been  under  discussion.  Conclusive  evi- 
dence upon  the  points  is  to  be  found  in  the  speech  delivered  by 


103 

Senator  Douglas  at  Bloomington,  July  16,  forty -two  days  before 
the  Freeport  debate,  in  which  he  said :  "I  tell  you,  my  friends, 
it  is  impossible  under  our  institutions  to  force  slavery  on  an 
unwilling  people.  If  this  principle  of  popular  sovereignty, 
asserted  in  the  Nebraska  bill  be  fairly  carried  out  by  letting 
the  people  decide  the  question  for  themselves  by  a  fair  vote,  at 
a  fair  election,  and  with  honest  returns,  slavery  will  never  exist 
one  day,  or  one  hour  in  any  territory  against  the  unfriendly 
legislation  of  an  unfriendly  people.  Hence,  if  the  people  of  a 
territory  want  slavery  they  will  encourage  it  by  passing  affirma- 
tory  laws,  and  the  necessary  police  regulations ;  if  they  do  not 
want  it,  they  will  withhold  that  legislation,  and  by  withholding 
it  slavery  is  as  dead  as  if  it  was  prohibited  by  a  constitutional 
prohibition.  They  could  pass  such  local  laws  and  police  regula- 
tions as  would  drive  slavery  out  in  one  day  or  one  houi"  if  they 
were  opposed  to  it,  and  therefore,  so  far  as  the  question  of 
slavery  in  the  territories  is  concerned,  so  far  as  the  principle 
of  popular  sovereignty  is  concerned  in  its  practical  operation, 
it  matters  not  how  the  Dred  Scott  ease  may  be  decided  with 
reference  to  the  territories.  My  own  opinion  on  that  point  is 
well  known.  It  is  shown  by  my  vote  and  speeches  in  Con- 
gress." 

Recurring  again  to  the  Freeport  debate,  in  reply  to  the  first 
interrogatory,  Mr.  Douglas  declared  that  in  reference  to  Kansas 
it  was  his  opinion  "that  if  it  had  population  enough  to  consti- 
tute a  slave  state,  it  had  people  enough  for  a  free  state ;  that 
he  would  not  make  Kansas  an  exceptional  case,  to  the  other 
states  of  the  Union ;  that  he  held  it  to  be  a  sound  rule  of  uni- 
versal application  to  require  a  territory  to  contain  the  requisite 
population  for  a  member  of  Congress  before  its  admission  as  a 
state  into  the  Union ;  that  it  having  been  decided  that  Kansas 
has  people  enough  for  a  slave  state,  I  hold  it  has  enough  for  a 
free  state." 

As  to  the  third  interrogatory,  he  said:  "Only  one  man  in 
the  United  States,  an  editor  of  a  paper  in  Washington,  had  held 
such  view,  and  that  he,  Doviglas,  had  at  the  time  denounced  it 
on  the  floor  of  the  Senate.  That  Mr.  Lincoln  casts  an  imputa- 
tion upon  the  Supreme  Court  by  supposing  that  it  would  violate 
the  Constitution ;  that  it  would  be  an  act  of  moral  treason  that 
no  man  on  the  bench  could  ever  descend  to."  To  tlie  fourth, 
which  he  said  was  "very  ingeniously  and  cunningly  put,"  he 
answered  that:  "Whenever  it  became  necessary  in  our  growth 
and  progress  to  acquire  more  territory  he  was  in  favor  of  it 
without  reference  to  the  question  of  slavery,  and  when  we  have 
acquired  it,  he  would  leave  the  people  to  do  as  they  pleased, 
either  to  make  it  free,  or  slave  territory  as  they  preferred." 

The  answer  to  the  second  interrogatory,  of  which  much 
has  been  written,  was  given  without  hesitation.  Language 
could  hardly  be  more  clear  or  effective.     He  said:     "To  the 


104 

next  question  propounded  to  me  I  answered  emphatically,  as 
Mr.  Lincoln  has  heard  me  answer  a  hundred  times,  that  in 
my  opinion  the  people  of  the  territory  can  by  lawful  means 
exclude  slavery  from  their  limits  prior  to  the  formation  of  a 
state  constitution.  It  matters  not  what  the  Supreme  Court 
may  hereafter  decide  as  to  the  abstract  question  whether 
slavery  may  or  may  not  go  into  a  territory  under  the  Consti- 
tution, the  people  have  the  lawful  means  to  introduce  it,  or 
exclude  it,  as  they  please,  for  the  reason  that  slavery  cannot 
exist  a  day,  or  an  hour  anywhere,  unless  it  is  supported  by 
local  police  regulations.  Those  police  regulations  can  only 
be  established  by  the  local  legislatures,  and  if  the  people  are 
opposed  to  slavery  they  will  elect  representatives  to  that  body 
who  will  by  unfriendly  legislation  effectually  prevent  the  in- 
troduction of  it  into  their  midst.  If,  on  the  contrary  they  are 
for  it,  their  Legislature  will  favor  its  extension.  Hence,  no 
matter  what  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  may  be  on  that 
abstract  question,  still  the  right  of  the  people  to  make  a  slave 
territory  or  a  free  territory  is  perfect  and  complete  under 
the  Nebraska  bill." 

The  trend  of  thought,  the  unmeasured  achievement  of 
activities  looking  to  human  amelioration,  during  the  fifty  in- 
tervening years,  must  be  taken  into  the  account  before  un- 
charitable judgment  upon  what  has  been  declared  the  indif- 
ference of  Mr.  Douglas  to  the  question  of  abstract  right  in- 
volved in  the  memorable  discussion.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  the  world  has  moved  apace,  and  that  a  mighty  gulf  sepa- 
rates us  from  that  eventful  period  in  which  practical  states- 
men were  compelled  to  deal  with  institutions  as  then  existing. 
And  not  to  be  forgotten  are  the  words  of  the  great  interpreter 
of  the  human  heart: 

"But — know  thou  this,  that 
Men  are  as  the  time  is." 

The  great  debates  between  Douglas  and  Lincoln,  the  like 
of  which  we  shall  not  hear  again,  had  ended  and  passed  to 
the  domain  of  history.  To  the  inquiry:  "Which  of  the  par- 
ticipants won  the  victory?" — there  can  be  no  absolute  answer. 
Judged  by  the  immediate  result — the  former,  by  consequence 
more  remote  and  far  reaching — the  latter.  Within  three  years 
from  the  first  meeting  at  Ottawa,  Mr.  Lincoln,  having  been 
elected  and  inaugurated  President,  was  upon  the  threshold  of 
mighty  events  which  are  now  the  masterful  theme  of  history ; 
and  his  great  antagonist  in  the  now  historic  debates — had 
passed  from  earthly  scenes. 

It  has  been  said  that  Douglas  was  ambitious, 

"If  'twere  so,  it  was  a  grievous  fault 
And  grievously  hath  he  answered  it." 


105 

We  may  well  believe  that  with  like  honorable  ambition  to 
the  two  great  popular  leaders  of  dififerent  periods,  Clay  and 
Blaine,  his  goal  was  the  presidency. 

In  the  three  last  national  conventions  of  his  party  preced- 
ing his  death,  he  was  presented  by  the  Illinois  delegation  to 
be  named  for  the  great  office.  The  last  of  these,  the  Charleston 
convention  of  1860,  is  now  historic.  It  assembled  amid  intense 
party  passion,  and  after  a  turbulent  session,  that  seemed  the 
omen  of  its  approaching  doom,  adjourned  to  a  later  day  to 
Baltimore.  Mr.  Douglas  there  received  the  almost  solid  vote 
of  the  northern,  and  a  portion  of  that  of  the  border  states, 
but  the  hostility  of  the  extreme  southern  leaders  to  his  candi- 
dacy was  implacable  to  the  end.  AVhat  had  seemed  inevitable 
from  the  beginning,  at  length  occurred,  and  the  great  historic 
party,  which  had  administered  the  government  with  brief  in- 
termissions from  the  inauguration  of  Jefferson,  was  hopelessly 
rent  asunder.  This  startling  event,  and  what  it  might  portend, 
gave  pause  to  thoughtful  men  of  all  parties.  It  was  not  a 
mere  incident,  but  an  epoch  in  history.  Mr.  Blaine  in  his 
"Twenty  Years  of  Congress"  says:  "The  situation  was  the 
cause  of  solicitude  and  even  grief  with  thousands  to  whom 
the  old  party  was  peculiarly  endeared.  The  traditions  of 
Jefferson,  of  Madison,  of  Jackson,  were  devoutly  treasured; 
and  the  splendid  achievements  of  the  American  democracy 
were  recounted  with  the  pride  which  attaches  to  an  honorable 
family  inheritance.  The  fact  was  recalled  that  the  republic 
had  grown  to  its  imperial  dimensions  under  Democratic  states- 
manship. It  was  remembered  that  Louisiana  had  been  acquired 
by  France,  Florida,  from  Spain,  the  independent  republic  of 
Texas  annexed,  and  California,  with  its  vast  dependencies,  and 
its  myriad  millions  of  treasure  ceded  by  Mexico,  all  under 
Democratic  administrations,  and  in  spite  of  the  resistence  of 
their  opponents.  That  a  party  whose  history  was  interwoven 
with  the  glory  of  the  republic  should  now  come  to  its  end  in 
a  quarrel  over  the  status  of  the  negro  in  a  country  where  his 
labor  was  not  wanted,  was  to  many  of  its  members  as  incom- 
prehensible as  it  was  sorrowful  and  exasperating.  They  might 
have  restored  the  party  to  harmony,  but  at  the  very  height 
of  the  factional  contest,  the  representatives  of  both  sections 
were  hurried  forward  to  the  national  convention  of  1860,  with 
principle  subordinated  to  passion,  with  judgment  displaced  by 
a  desire  for  revenge." 

The  withdrawal  from  the  Baltimore  convention  of  a  large 
majority  of  the  southern  delegates  and  a  small  following,  led 
by  Caleb  Cushing  and  Benjamin  F.  Butler  from  the  north, 
resulted  in  the  immediate  nomination  by  the  requisite  two- 
thirds  vote  of  Senator  Douglas  as  the  presidential  candidate. 
The  platform  upon  the  question  of  slavery  was  in  substance 
that  contended   for  bv   the   candidates    in    the   debates  with 


lOG 

Lincoln.  The  Democratic  party  divided,  Breckenridge  receiv- 
ing the  support  of  the  south,  Mr.  Douglas'  candidacy  was  hope- 
less from  the  beginning.  But  his  iron  will  and  courage,  that 
knew  no  faltering,  never  appeared  to  better  advantage  than 
during  that  eventful  canvass.  Deserted  by  former  political 
associates,  he  visited  distant  states  and  addressed  immense 
audiences  in  defense  of  the  platform  upon  which  he  had  been 
nominated,  and  in  advocacy  of  his  own  election.  His  speeches 
in  southern  states  were  of  the  stormy  incidents  of  a  struggle 
that  has  scarcely  known  a  parallel.  Interrogated  by  a  prom- 
inent citizen  at  Norfolk,  Ya.  "If  Lincoln  be  elected  President, 
would  the  southern  states  be  justified  in  seceding  from  the 
Union?"  Douglas  instantly  replied:  "I  emphatically  answer, 
no.  The  election  of  a  man  to  the  Presidency  in  conformity 
with  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  would  not  justify 
an  attempt  to  dissolve  the  Union." 

Defeated  in  his  great  ambition,  broken  in  health,  the  sad 
witness  of  the  unmistakable  portents  of  the  coming  sectional 
strife,  the  few  remaining  months  of  his  mortal  life  were  en- 
veloped in  gloom.  Partisan  feeling  vanished,  his  deep  concern 
was  now  only  for  his  country.  Standing  by  the  side  of  his  suc- 
cessful rival  whose  wondrous  career  was  only  opening,  as  his 
own  was  nearing  its  close,  he  bowed  profound  assent  to  the  im- 
perishable utterances  of  the  inaugural  address :  "I  am  loath  to 
close.  We  are  not  enemies  but  friends.  "We  must  not  be  ene- 
mies. Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break 
our  bonds  of  affection.  The  mystic  chords  of  memory  stretching 
from  every  battlefield  and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart 
and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the 
chorus  of  the  union  when  again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be, 
by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 

Yet  later,  immediately  upon  the  firing  of  the  fatal  shot  at 
Sumter  that  suddenly  summoned  millions  from  peaceful  pur- 
suits to  arms,  by  invitation  of  the  Illinois  Legislature,  Mr.  Doug- 
las addressed  his  countrymen  for  the  last  time.  ''Broken  with 
the  storms  of  State,"  the  fires  of  ambition  forever  extinguished, 
standing  literally  upon  the  threshold  of  the  grave,  his  soul 
burdened  with  the  calamities  that  had  befallen  his  country,  in 
tones  of  deepest  pathos  he  declared:  "If  war  must  come,  if 
the  bayonet  must  be  used  to  maintain  the  Constitution,  I  can 
say  before  God,  my  conscience  is  clear.  I  have  struggled  long 
for  a  peaceful  solution  of  the  trouble.  I  deprecate  war,  but  if 
it  must  come,  I  am  with  my  country,  and  for  my  country,  in 
every  contingency,  and  under  all  circumstances.  At  all  hazards 
our  Government  must  be  maintained,  and  the  shortest  pathway 
to  peace  is  through  the  most  stupendous  preparation  for  war." 
Who  that  heard  the  last  public  utterance  that  fell  from  his  lips, 


Douglas  Monument,  Chicago 


108 

can  forget  his  solemn  invocation  to  all  who  had  followed  his 
political  fortunes,  until  the  banner  had  fallen  from  his  hand — 
"to  know  only  their  country  in  its  hour  of  peril!" 

The  ordinary  limit  of  human  life  unreached ;  his  intellectual 
strength  unabated ;  his  loftiest  aspirations  unrealized ;  at  the 
critical  moment  of  his  country's  sorest  need,  he  passed  to  the 
grave.  What  reflections  and  regrets  may  have  been  his  in  that 
hour  of  awful  mystery,  Ave  may  not  know.  In  the  words  of  an- 
other: "What  blight  and  anguish  met  his  agonized  eyes,  whose 
lips  may  tell?  What  brilliant,  broken  plans,  what  bitter  rend- 
ing of  sweet  household  ties,  of  strong  manhood's  friendships!" 

In  the  light  of  what  has  been  disclosed,  may  we  not  believe 
that  with  his  days  prolonged,  he  would  during  the  perilous  years 
have  been  the  safe  counselor,  the  rock,  of  the  great  President, 
in  preserving  the  nation's  life,  and  later  "in  binding  up  the 
nation's  wounds." 

Worthy  of  honored  and  enduring  place  in  history,  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,  statesman  and  patriot,  lies  buried  within  the  great 
city  whose  stupendous  development  is  so  largely  the  result  of 
his  own  wise  forecast  and  endeavor,  by  the  majestic  lake  whose 
waves  break  near  the  base  of  his  stately  monument  and  chant 
his  eternal  requiem. 


109 


Letters  and  Telegrams 

A  number  of  prominent  men  in  various  parts  of  the  eoun- 
try,  to  Miioni  invitations  liad  been  extended  but  who  were  un- 
able to  attend,  responded  with  letters  or  telegrams,  expressing 
regret  at  their  inability  to  be  present  at  the  celebration.  A  few 
of  these  are  printed  below: 

THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

Washington,  April  21,  1913. 
My  Dear  Senator  Manny  : 

The  President  directs  me  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of 
your  letter  of  April  19,  and  to  express  his  regret  that  he  must 
disappoint  you.  The  unusually  heavy  pressure  under  which 
he  is  working  just  now  would  prevent  a  compliance  with  your 
request,  even  were  it  possible  to  avoid  the  embarrassment  and 
dissatisfaction  wdiicli  experience  has  shown  is  certain  to  follow 
any  attempt  at  discrimination  between  the  thousands  of  similar 
requests  that  reach  him  from  day  to  day  with  even  a  compara- 
tively small  part  of  which  it  would  be  utterly  out  of  the  question 
for  him  to  comply. 

Expressing  the  President's  hope  that  you  will  appreciate 
the  conditions  with  which  he  is  confronted,  I  am 

Sincerely  yours, 

J.  P.  Tumulty, 
Secretary  to  the  President. 
Hon,  W.  I.  Manny, 

Springfield,  Illinois. 


Washington,  D.  C,  April  23,  1913. 
Hon.  Walter  I.  Manny, 

Chainnan  of  the  Committee, 
Springfield,  111. 

I  am  exceedingly  sorry  that  I  am  unable  to  join  you  to- 
morrow in  celebrating  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  the 
birth  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  He  was  a  very  great  man,  a 
great  debater,  a  great  Senator  and  a  great  patriot.  I  have 
always  felt  proud  of  the  fact  that  I  introduced  him  to  the  joint 
session  of  the  Illinois  Legislature  on  the  occasion  of  the  last 
address  but  one  that  he  delivered  in  our  State  before  he  gave 
up  his  ow^n  life.  I  have  always  regarded  Stephen  A.  Douglas 
and  Lyman  Trumbull  as  two  of  the  greatest  Senators  who  ever 
did  honor  to  our  State  and  country.  I  sincerely  hope  the  oc- 
casion tomorrow  will  be  fully  worthy  of  the  great  service  to  the 
country  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 

S,  M.   CULLOM. 


110 

The  Courier-Journal 

Louisville,  April  10,  1913. 

My  Dear  Sir: 

I  am  in  receipt  of  your  flattering  telegram  and  at  the  same 
time  of  a  very  kind  letter  from  your  distinguished  Governor. 

To  appear  before  the  General  Assembly  of  Illinois  would 
be  at  all  times  and  under  every  circumstance  a  distinction,  but 
to  be  deemed  fit  to  speak  upon  such  an  occasion — the  centen- 
nary  of  the  birth  of  her  "Little  Giant" — leaves  me  poor  in 
words  to  thank  you. 

I  wish  it  were  possible  for  me  to  accept  a  call  at  once  so 
signal  and  gratifying.  Obligations  imperative  in  character 
already  assumed  and  pressing  upon  me,  forbid,  and  I  am  forced 
reluctantly  to  deny  myself  what  would  otherwise  be  a  labor 
of  both  love  and  duty.  For  give  me  leave  to  say  I  am  equally 
touched  and  honored  by  your  invitation. 

From  my  boyhood  to  his  death  I  knew  Judge  Douglas  well. 
The  last  two  years  of  his  life — and  especially  the  last  few 
months — I  was  with  him  every  day.  He  was  as  lovable  as  he 
was  great.  Lincoln  was  not  a  truer  friend  to  the  Union,  and 
had  his  life  been  spared,  there  is  reason  to  believe  he  would 
have  been  Lincoln's  second  self  during  the  dark  days  of  the 
sectional  war. 

When  he  returned  to  Washington  after  the  famous  Lincoln- 
Douglas  debate  of  1858,  I  heard  him  asked  about  the  strange 
new  being  who  had  so  suddenly  risen  above  the  national  hori- 
zon. "Mr.  Lincoln,"  he  replied,  "is  the  very  ablest  debater 
I  have  ever  met  here  or  anywhere  else. ' ' 

Generous  to  a  fault,  captivating  before  every  audience  and 
delightful  in  all  private  companies — Mr.  Blaine  himself  not 
more  so^ — he  was  bound  to  the  dying  body  of  institutional 
slavery  which  he  abhorred,  and  dazzled  by  the  Presidency  as 
were  Clay,  Webster  and  Calhoun. 

Lincoln's  bark  rode  a  flowing  tide,  Douglas'  bark  rode  an 
ebbing  tide.  Amid  the  gloom  of  the  conflict  he  had  vainly 
striven  to  avert,  and  the  thunder  of  cannon  whose  reverbera- 
tions broke  his  heart  he  was  called  to  the  bosom  of  his  God; 
but  when  the  mists  roll  away  and  the  dawn  of  the  truth  of 
history  cometh  his  name  and  fame,  like  the  name  and  fame  of 
Lincoln,  will  endure  forever  and  aye ! 

Sincerely, 

Henry  Watterson. 
Hon.  Walter  I.  Manny, 

Chairman  of  the  Joint  Committee,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 


Ill 

Gkeensboro,  N.  C,  April  14,  1913. 
Hon,  Walter  I.  Manny, 

President  of  the  Senate, 
Springfield,  111. 

I  deeply  regret  that  the  present  state  of  my  health  forbids 
my  acceptance  of  your  kind  invitation  to  attend  as  a  guest  of 
the  State  of  Illinois  and  to  address  the  joint  session  of  the 
Legislature  upon  the  celebration  of  the  centennial  anniversary 
of  my  father's  birth.  This  recalls  the  unforgotten  address 
delivered  by  my  father  at  the  unanimous  request  of  both  Houses 
of  the  Legislature  in  April,  1861.  You  cannot  imagine  the 
pleasure  it  would  give  me  to  address  the  same  body  and  thank 
them  for  their  generous  commemoration  of  the  birth  of  a  true 
son  of  Illinois,  the  dominating  principle  of  whose  life  faithfully 
followed  in  sunshine  and  in  storm,  in  victory  and  defeat,  was 
the  preservation  of  the  Union. 

Robert  M.  Douglas. 


Bloomington,  III.,  April  21,  1913. 
Hon.  Walter  I,  Manny, 
Senate  Chamber, 

Springfield,  Illinois. 

My  Dear  Senator: 

The  death  of  my  brother  prevents  the  possibility  of  my 
being  present  at  the  Douglas  Centennial  Celebration  on  the 
23d  of  April. 

I  beg  to  thank  you  for  your  courteous  invitation,  and  to 
assure  you  that  under  other  circumstances  I  would  gladly  have 
taken  part  in  the  exercises  in  honor  of  the  man  I  honored  and 
loved. 

Yours  sincerely, 

Adlai  E.  Stevenson. 


Galesbttrg,  Illinois,  April  20,  1913. 
The  Honor.vble  Walter  I.  Manny. 
My  Dear  Sir: 

I  regret  extremely  that  in  response  to  your  kind  invita- 
tion I  cannot  be  present  at  the  joint  session  of  the  Illinois  Legis- 
lature on  the  23d  instant,  to  celebrate  the  one  hundredth  anni- 
versary of  the  birth  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas ;  but,  before  receiv- 
ing your  invitation  in  behalf  of  the  joint  session,  I  had  already 
promised  to  be  present  on  the  very  same  day,  and  speak  in 
honor  of  the  occasion  before  the  Chicago  Historical  Society, 
and  T  find  it  to  be  impossible  for  me  to  be  present  at  both 
celebrations. 

Next  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  Stephen  A.  Douglas  was  the 
greatest  statesman  Illinois  ever  gave  to  the  Nation,  and  it  may 
be  questioned  whether  the  country    ever    produced   another 


112 

statesman  who  surpassed  either.  Only  a  few  months  before  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Civil  AVar,  Lincoln  and  Douglas  were  both 
candidates  before  the  people  for  President.  They  received  in 
the  aggregate  over  three  million  votes — that  is,  over  three 
millions  of  men,  all  of  whom  had  attained  their  majority,  had 
but  a  short  time  before  voted  for  either  Lincoln  or  Douglas. 
When  the  war  was  precipitated,  notwithstanding  he  had  always 
been  in  antagonism  to  the  party  in  power,  Douglas  at  once 
declared  for  his  country  and  summoned  all  the  men  of  his 
party  to  the  support  of  the  Government,  and,  side  by  side, 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  Democrats  and  Republicans  took  their 
places  in  the  ranks  to  fight  and  die  to  save  their  country.  Had 
Douglas  failed  to  declare  himself  at  once,  or  had  he  even  hesi- 
tated, as  did  some  who  afterwards,  under  his  influence,  became 
patriots  and  heroes,  the  results  of  the  great  war  for  the  Union 
might  not  have  been  so  glorious  as  they  were. 

The  people  of  the  whole  great  nation  owe  a  debt  of  grati- 
tude to  Stephen  A.  Douglas  they  can  never  repay,  and,  in  cele- 
brating this  centennial  anniversary,  while  they  are  honoring 
his  memory,  thej^  are  also  honoring  themselves. 

I  am,  my  dear  sir, 

Faithfully  yours, 

Clark  E.  Carr. 


Urbana.  Illinois,  April  16,  1913. 
Hon.  WiVLTER  I.  Manny. 

]\Iy  Dear  Sir  :  I  highly  appreciat.e  the  honor  your  com- 
mittee do  me  in  the  extension  to  me  of  the  invitation  to  attend 
the  exercises  to  be  held  on  the  23d  inst.  in  honor  of  the  one 
hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Illinois'  greatest  Senator, 
Hon.  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  I  regret  to  say  that  the  infirmities 
incident  to  advanced  age  strongly  incline  me  to  remain  at  home 
during  these  days  which  influence  will  probably  decide  me 
against  accepting  this  invitation. 

I  assure  you,  however,  that  the  movement  to  place  before 
the  country  the  memory  of  our  greatest  Senator  meets  my 
hearty  approval.  From  1854,  and  for  six  years  thereafter,  as 
the  editor  of  a  country  paper  here  and  as  an  embryo  politician, 
I  did  my  best  to  give  his  place  to  another  and  shared  in  the 
contests  not  always  of  the  cleanest  character  against  him;  yet 
the  memory  of  what  he  did  in  1861  in  behalf  of  the  Union  and 
Constitution,  when  his  influence  was  so  potent,  long  since  erased 
from  my  mind  evei-^-  adverse  thouglit  and  set  aside  all  of  my 
criticisms  of  him.     I  shall  always  love  to  join  in  his  praise. 

Yours, 

J.  0.  Cunningham. 


113 

The  Southern  Illinois  Penitentiary 

Warden's  Office 

J.  B.  Smith,  Warden 

Menard  P.  0.,  Illinois,  April  18,  1913. 
Hon.  Walter  I.  Manny, 

Springfield,  Illinois. 
Dear  Senator: 

I  beg  to  acknowledge  receipt  of  yours  of  the  14th  inst., 
notifying  me  that  the  Illinois  Legislature,  by  joint  resolution, 
unanimously  adopted  by  both  Houses,  have  determined  to 
celebrate  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Stephen 
A.  Douglas. 

How  w^ell  you  have  expressed  the  love  and  estimation  of  a 
noble  man,  wherein  you  say  "whose  name  and  fame  are  im- 
perishable and  splendid  heritage  of  our  great  commonwealth." 
Today  I  can  see  Stephen  A.  Douglas  as  he  was  introduced  from 
the  balcony  of  the  Bates  House  in  Indianapolis  to  the  largest 
political  gathering  I  have  ever  seen.  He  was  introduced  as 
"the  Little  Giant  from  Illinois;"  and  John  A.  Logan  from  the 
same  platform  was  introduced  as  the  "Chief  of  Egypt."  This 
was  in  October,  1856.  I  see  him  now  as  I  saw^  him  then,  and  a 
great  deal  of  his  speech  I  still  remember.  Having  been  brought 
up  as  wliat  is  known  as  a  Kentucky  Corncracker,  and  my 
father  being  a  very  strong  Douglas  Democrat,  it  made  a  lasting 
impression  upon  me. 

I  thank  you  for  remembering  me  and  extending  your  kind 
invitation  to  be  present  at  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of 
the  birth  of  as  great  a  man,  if  not  the  greatest,  our  country 
ever  knew. 

The  changing  of  the  management  of  this  institution  will 
come  on  the  same  date,  and  it  is  with  deep  regret  that  I  cannot 
be  with  you. 

Again  thanking  you  for  your  kind  remembrance, 

Sincerely  yours, 

Jas.  B.  Smith. 


Walker  &"  Woods 
Attorneys  and  Counsellors  at  Law 

Carlinville,  Illinois,'  April  19,  1913. 
Hon.  Walter  I.  Manny, 
Springfield,  Illinois. 
Dear  Sir: 

The  reception  of  your  invitation  to  attend  the  one  hun- 
dredth anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  to  be 
held  under  the  auspices  of  the  Illinois  State  Legislature  on  the 
23d  day  of  the  present  month,  gave  me  great  pleasure.  I 
would  much  enjoy  being  with  you  on  that  occasion,  but  my 
health  is  such  that  I  dare  not  attempt  it. 


114 

I  rejoice  that  I  have  lived  loug  enough  in  our  great  State 
of  Illinois  to  realize  the  wonderful  strides  that  our  common- 
wealth has  made  since  its  organization  and  to  realize  whose 
brains  contributed  to  the  upbuilding  of  its  towering  influence 
among  our  sister  states.  Looking  back  to  the  early  times  and 
influences  that  have  given  us  the  wonderful  progression  that 
has  been  achieved  by  the  State,  there  looms  up  in  my  mind 
the  action  of  the  many  statesmen  of  those  early  times,  than 
whom  there  is  no  one  more  worthy  of  the  gratitude  of  the 
present  generation  than  is  our  own  Judge  Douglas,  "the  Little 
Giant."  It  was  he  who  saved  the  State  honor  in  preventing 
repudiation  at  a  time  when  we  were  almost  bankinipt  and  when 
many  of  the  best  men  in  the  State  were  urging  such  action  by 
our  State  Legislature.  But  why  need  I  recapitulate  the  de- 
votion of  Stephen  A.  Douglas  and  his  great  loyalty  to  our  State 
and  nation  in  the  dark  hours  of  our  history? 

My  acquaintance  with  Judge  Douglas  was  of  a  general 
political  nature.  I  was  often  thrown  into  his  company  at  con- 
ventions and  political  meetings,  and  at  all  times  he  was  the 
general  commanding. 

As  alternate  delegate  in  1860  I  attended  the  Charleston 
Convention  before  which  Judge  Douglas  was  a  candidate  for 
President.  The  scenes  and  actions  of  the  representatives  to 
that  convention  were  so  indelibly  engraven  upon  my  memory 
that  I  can  never  forget  them,  and  as  Judge  Douglas'  loyalty 
to  our  Government  was  so  strongly  tempted  by  the  southern 
delegates  to  that  convention  in  the  offer  to  give  us  the  candi- 
date if  we  would  give  to  them  the  making  of  the  platform,  or 
vice  versa,  they  to  take  the  candidate  and  we  to  have  the 
making  of  the  platform.  Judge  Douglas'  answer  to  that  prop- 
osition was  "No."  "If  we  get  the  candidate  we  must  have  a 
part  in  the  making  of  the  platform, ' '  and  in  that  reply  he  knew 
that  his  chances  for  obtaining  his  life's  ambition  were  sealed 
and  gone  forever.  Do  not  understand  that  the  proposition  was 
made  in  convention,  but  it  was  through  delegates  from  a  caucus 
of  the  southern  delegates  to  a  caucus  of  the  delegates  from 
the  north,  at  which  I  was  present  as  a  delegate  from  our  State. 
This  act  on  the  part  of  Judge  Douglas  is  worthy  of  the  greatest 
of  all  the  great  men  of  that  or  any  other  age,  in  my  estimation. 

Again  thanking  you  for  the  in^dtation,  I  am, 

Very  truly  yours, 

Charles  A.  Walker. 


115 

Lansden  &'  Lansden 

District  Counsel 

Mobile  &  Ohio  Railroad  Company 

614  Commercial  Avenue 

Cairo,  Illinois,  April  21.  1913. 
Hon.  Walter  I.  Manny, 

Springfield,  111. 
Dear  Sir: 

Your  very  kind  invitation  to  attend  the  celebration  of  the 
one  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas 
should  have  been  answered  before  this  time,  but  I  have  been 
so  busy  about  many  other  things  that  I  have  not  had  the  time 
to  do  so.  I  regret  it  exceedingly  that  it  will  not  be  in  my 
power  to  attend  the  celebration,  as  much  as  I  would  like  to 
do  so. 

The  present  generation  knows  far  too  little  of  Stephen  A. 
Douglas.  He  was  one  of  the  very  greatest  men  we  have  ever 
had  in  this  country.  Of  all  of  our  many  great  men  none  have 
surpassed  him  in  intellectual  power,  commanding  presence  and 
ability  as  a  public  speaker.  I  would  not  speak  of  him  as  an 
orator.  That  would  not  express  it.  His  clear,  strong,  fine 
language,  his  manner,  his  voice,  reaching  to  acres  of  people, 
all  so  steady  and  deliberate  and  sublimely  grand,  impressed 
every  one  as  incomparably  wonderful.  This  may  seem  extrava- 
gant. Perhaps  it  is ;  but  to  change  or  reduce  it  much  would 
be  to  fall  short  of  the  actual  facts. 

I  saw  and  heard  him  many  times  and  especially  upon  one 
occasion,  of  which  I  would  like  to  speak  at  some  length  had  I 
the  time  and  you  the  leisure  to  read  what  I  would  write.  I 
was  in  Nashville  when  he  and  John  Bell  and  William  L.  Yancey 
and  Henry  S.  Foote  were  there,  a  few  days  before  the  election 
in  November,  1860.  Bell  was  also  a  candidate,  you  remember. 
Douglas  was  returning  north  from  an  extended  trip  through 
the  south.  Yancev  was  returnmg  south  from  a  tour  in  the 
north.  Douglas  spoke  in  the  afternoon  and  Yancey  in  the 
evening.  It  seemed  to  me  there  were  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  people  in  the  city.  In  a  word,  it  was,  I  think,  the  greatest 
gathering  or  occasion  I  ever  attended.  I  remember  well  what 
all  my  fellow  law  students  said  of  him.  Most  of  tliem  were  for 
Breckinridge  and  Bell,  and  were  perhaps  about  equally  divided 
between  those  two  candidates ;  but  words  failed  tlunn  to  ex- 
press their  admiration  and  the  effect  upon  them  of  the  speech 
of  the  great  Senator  from  Illinois.  I  never  saw  an  assemblage 
so  impressed.  The  effect  upon  them  was  striking  indeed.  Most 
of  tliem  differed  widely  from  him,  but  they  seemed  to  look  and 
feel  as  though  the  foundations  of  all  their  hopes  had  been  swept 
from  under  them. 


116 

Let  me  add  but  one  thing  more,  one  of  a  score  or  more: 
Douglas  entered  the  Senate  in  1847,  little  known  then  outside 
of  Illinois ;  but  in  the  course  of  a  very  few  years  and  especially 
in  1850,  when  AVebster  and  Clay  and  Calhoun  were  there,  and 
the  great  compromise  measures  of  that  time  were  before  the 
Senate,  those  three,  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  the  Senators  our 
country  has  ever  had,  came  to  look  upon  Mr.  Douglas  as  a  man 
of  great  ability  and  power  and  as  promising  more  for  the  fu- 
ture than  any  one  else  in  that  great  body. 

Senator  Douglas,  great  as  he  was,  did  not  seem  to  realize 
fully  the  growing  power  of  the  north  as  compared  with  the 
south.  He  seems  to  have  allied  himself  with  the  south  and 
to  some  extent,  the  north  thought,  with  slavery,  and  hence,  his 
failure  in  the  great  national  contest. 

Very  truly  yours, 

John  M.  Lansden. 


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118 


Supreme  Court  of  Illinois 

Clerk's  Office 

J.  McCan  Davis,  Clerk 

Supreme  Court  Building 
Springfield,  Illinois 

April  30,   1913. 

Hon.  Walter  I.  Manny, 

Cliainnan  Joint  Committee  on  Arrangements, 
Douglas  Centennial  Celebration, 
Springfield,  111. 

My  Dear  Senator: 

As  an  admirer  of  both  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  I  wish  to  congratulate  you  and  your  fellow  members  of 
the  General  Assembly  on  the  fitting  manner  in  which  the  centen- 
nial anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Mr.  Douglas  was  recently  cele- 
brated. It  was  an  appropriate  and  just  tribute  to  a  man  whom 
historians  generally  have  not  treated  with  that  impartial  and 
ample  justice  which  he  so  richly  merited  by  his  devoted  service 
to  his  country. 

It  is  no  easy  task  to  impress  upon  the  present  generation 
the  commanding  ability  and  tremendous  power  of  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  in  the  affairs  of  this  government  at  the  zenith  of  his 
greatness.  Illinois,  in  the  thirty  years  following  its  admission 
to  the  Union,  produced  several  United  States  Senators  of  ability, 
but  none  who  rose  to  national  pre-eminence.  Prior  to  1850,  the 
United  States  Senate  was  dominated  by  the  East  and  South. 
Illinois  was  a  far-western  state,  and  it  had  had  comparatively 
small  voice  in  national  affairs.  With  the  passing  of  Webster, 
Clay  and  Calhoun,  Stephen  A.  Douglas  rose  to  a  place  of  con- 
spicuous and  powerful  leadership,  almost  without  a  parallel  in 
American  history.  He  focused  national  attention  on  Illinois, 
and  this  State  at  once  took  its  place  in  the  front  rank  of  Ameri- 
can commonwealths.  Illinois  became  the  great  battleground  in 
the  national  conflict  which  was  to  tenninate  in  the  Civil  War. 
Douglas  "set  the  pace"  for  all  Senators  from  Illinois  who  came 
after  him.  He  fixed  a  standard  of  ability,  integrity  and  patriot- 
ism which,  in  the  half  century  that  has  passed  since  his  death, 
has  had  a  powerful  and  beneficent  influence  upon  his  successors. 
Although  since  the  death  of  Douglas,  Illinois  has  been  repre- 
sented in  the  United  States  Senate  by  some  of  the  ablest  men 
of  the  nation.  I  think  it  -will  be  conceded  that  none  has  sur- 
passed the  "Little  Giant"  in  the  depth  and  breadth  of  his 
statesmanship  or  in  point  of  service  to  his  country. 


119 

Douglas  was  the  commanding  leader  of  a  great  party — "a. 
partisan  in  partisan  times" — but  he  belongs  to  history  as  a. 
patriot  rather  than  as  a  partisan  leader.  Whatever  may  have 
been  the  judgment  of  his  contemporaries,  or  whatever  may  ba- 
the verdict  of  his  successors,  all  must  acknowledge  his  tran- 
scendent ability  and  his  lofty  patriotism,  and  all  must  admire 
the  "splendor  of  his  combat." 

Very  sincerely, 

J.  McCan  Davis, 
Clerk  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois, 
Author  of  "How  Abraham  Lincoln  Be- 
came President, "  "  The  Breaking  of  the 
Deadlock,"  etc. 


120 


ADDENDA      . 

At  the  date  of  the  proceedings  of  tlie  Illinois  Legislature 
commemorating  the  one  hundredth  annivei*sary  of  the  birth  of 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  there  were  living  three  men  who  took  a 
prominent  part  in  his  last  senatorial  campaign  and  in  his  cam- 
paign for  the  Presidency  in  1860.  These  gentlemen  were  Adlai 
E.  Stevenson,  Lewis  DuBois  Erwin,  William  Taylor  Davidson. 
Since  the  proceedings  in  the  Legislature  each  of  these  three 
gentlemen  has  passed  away.  The  committee  in  charge  of  the 
celebration  feel  that  it  would  not  be  inappropriate  to  give  here- 
with a  short  sketch  of  each  of  them  and  their  connection  with  the 
lamented  Douglas,  which  sketches,  at  the  request  of  the  com- 
mittee, were  prepared  by  Ethan  Allen  Snively,  who  was  an  inti- 
mate personal  friend  of  each  of  the  distinguished  gentlemen. 

Adlai  E.  Stevenson 

At  the  time  of  the  centennial  of  the  birth  of  Stephen  a. 
Douglas,  the  most  prominent  man  living  who  had  taken  an  ac- 
tive part  in  his  senatorial  campaigns  was  ex- Vice   President 
Adlai  E.  Stevenson,  of  Bloomington.     No  man  has  contributed 
more  to  the  civic  life  of  Illinois  and  the  nation  than  Mr.  Steven- 
son.   He  was  bom  October  23,  1835,  in  Christian  County,  Ken- 
tucky, and  removed  with  his  family,  at  an  early  age,  to  Illinois. 
After   attending    the     public    schools    he     attended   Wesleyan 
University     and     Center     College     at     Danville,     Kentucky. 
In  1857  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar  and  at  once  took  a  front 
rank  in  his  profession  as  well  as  becoming  quite  prominent  in 
politics.     He  had,  in  the  senatorial  campaign  of  1852,  been  one 
of  the  most  prominent  young  men  in  the  State  in  urging  the  re- 
election of  Senator  Douglas;  and  in  the  celebrated  campaign  of 
1858,  and  in  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1860,  his  time  was 
almost  wholly  devoted  to  the  election  of  the  Senator.    "While  Mr. 
Stevenson  knew  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  had  tried  law  suits  with 
him  and  against  him,  he  could  not  in  the  least  abandon  one  jot 
of  his  love  and  admiration  for  Douglas,  whom  he  regarded  as 
the  greatest  and  most  incori-uptible  statesman  of  his  day.     The 
first  office  held  by  Mr.  Stevenson  was,  by  appointment  of  the 
court,  that  of  Master  in  Chancery,  the  duties  of  which  office  he 
discharged  in  the  most  satisfactory  manner.     The  first  position 
occupied  by  Mr.  Stevenson  which  brought  him  into  direct  con- 
tact with  the  people  was  that  of  State 's  Attorney  for  the  Twenty- 
third  judicial  circuit,  to  which  office  he  was  elected  in  1864. 
Under  the  Constitution  then  existing  the  territory  for  which  the 
State's  Attorney  was  elected  was  co-extensive  with  that  of  the 
circuit  judge.      The   performance   of  the   duties   of  this   office 
brought  Mr.  Stevenson  in  contact  with  the  people  and  in  con- 
tact with  the  ablest  lawyers  of  the  State.     Here  he  contended 


121 

witli  such  men  as  Abraham  Lincoln,  J)avid  Davis,  Stephen  T. 
Logan,  Julius  Manning,  Normim  II.  I'urple,  William  Kellogg 
and  the  great  lawyers  of  that  day  in  Illinois  and  at  times  with 
prominent  lawyers  from  other  states.  Mr.  Stevenson  was  a  born 
diplomat  in  the  broadest  sense  of  the  word.  He  was  deferen- 
tial, without  being  obseciuious,  to  all — he  was  never  criticized  by 
the  court — he  was  courteous  to  officer,  witnesses  and  jurors — 
and  his  word  was  all  the  stipulation  ever  asked  by  his  opponents 
in  a  law  suit.  These  characteristics  were  a  part  and  parcel  of 
his  life  and  caused  all  ^^'ho  came  in  contact  with  him  to  love  and 
respect  him.  To  these  qualities,  which  were  thus  early  devel- 
oped, were  added  great  executive  and  legislative  ability,  and  he 
owed  to  them  the  success  which  he  afterw^ards  attained  and  made 
him  the  model  official. 

Removing  to  J31oomington  he  engaged  in  the  general  prac- 
tice of  the  law  in  connection  with  Honorable  James  S.  Ewing. 
The  firm  soon  took  front  rank  and  was  at  the  head  of  a  bar 
knoAvn  all  over  the  State  for  the  eminent  ability  of  its  members. 

In  1874,  by  the  urgent  request  of  the  Democrats  of  his 
district,  he  consented  to  become  a  candidate  for  Congress,  al- 
though the  district  had  a  majority  of  about  three  thousand  for 
the  Republican  part3^  Here,  again,  was  brought  into  play 
those  qualities  to  which  reference  has  been  made  and  notwith- 
standing the  great  majority  against  his  party  he  overcame  it 
and  was  elected,  as  he  was  again  in  1878,  having  been  defeated 
in  1876.  In  1877  he  was  appointed  by  President  Hayes  a  visitor 
to  the  West  Point  Military  Academy.  Retiring  from  Congress, 
he  again  took  up  the  practice  of  law,  which  he  followed  contin- 
uously until  1885,  when  President  Cleveland,  one  of  the  best 
judges  of  men  who  ever  filled  the  executive  chair,  appointed  him 
to  the  position  of  first  assistant  Postmaster  General.  This  was 
the  most  difficult  position  to  fill  in  the  administration.  The 
Democratic  party  had  been  out  of  power  for  a  quarter  of  a 
cejitury.  For  neaily  every  fouith  class  postoffice  there  were 
many  candidates.  To  reconcile  these  differences — to  obliterate 
party  factions — to  exclude  neighborhood  feuds — and  to  get  the 
best  man  for  the  service,  was  a  task  beyond  conception.  Mr. 
Stevenson  went  at  it  and  how  well  he  accomplished  his  task  is 
shown  with  what  rejoicing  Ids  name  was  hailed  when,  in  1892, 
he  was  nominated  for  Vice  President.  Had  Mr.  Cleveland  been 
re-elected  in  1888,  Mr.  Stevenson  would  have  gone  into  the  cab- 
inet as  Postmaster  General.  When  the  Democratic  National  Con- 
vention met  in  1892,  and  after  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Cleveland 
had  been  made,  the  name  of  Mr.  Stevenson  Avas  suggested  for 
Vice  President.  The  suggestion  took  like  wild  fii-e,  and  dele- 
gation after  delegation  almost  ran  ovei'  one  anotlicr  to  give  lihu 
their  votes,  and  it  is  no  discredit  to  the  dead  Cleveland  to  say 
that  the  great  personal  strength  of  Mr.  Stevenson  contril)uted  in 
no  small  degree  to  the  victory  won  that  year  by  the  Democracy. 


19'> 

To  this  high  office  he  brought  all  his  experience  and  ability,  and 
his  natural  diplomacy  made  him  the  ideal  presiding  officer,  and 
he  left  a  record  which  has  never  been  excelled.  Upon  the  ac- 
cession of  President  McKinley  in  1877,  he  appointed  Mr.  Steven- 
son a  member  of  the  Monetary  Commission  and  he  visited  aU 
the  European  nations,  and  on  his  return  submitted  a  report  most 
highly  complimented  by  the  President  and  prominent  American 
financiers.  In  1900  he  was  again  nominated  for  Vice  President, 
with  William  Jennings  Bryan,  the  candidate  for  President,  but 
the  National  ticket  was  defeated.  In  the  election  of  1904,  the 
Republican  candidate  for  Governor  received  a  majority  of  nearly 
three  hundred  thousand  over  his  Democratic  opponent;  in  1908 
the  Democrats  turned  to  Mr.  Stevenson,  who  accepted  the  nom- 
ination, not  because  he  wanted  to  be  Governor  but  because  he 
felt  it  his  duty  to  respond  to  the  call  of  his  party.  He  was 
defeated  by  less  than  twenty-five  thousand  votes  and  received 
nearly  seventy-five  thousand  more  votes  than  the  Democratic 
candidate  for  President. 

In  1908,  at  the  semi-centennial  celebration  of  the  Douglas- 
Lincoln  debates,  Mr.  Stevenson  took  a  prominent  part.  At  the 
January  meeting  of  tlie  State  Historical  Society  he  delivered  an 
elaborate  address  upon  Mr.  Douglas.  The  address  was  a  histori- 
cal classic.  He  spoke  of  the  dead  Senator  as  only  one  could 
who  knew  and  loved  him,  one  whose  heart  beat  in  unison  with 
the  great  statesman.  His  address  on  this  occasion  will  be  a 
text  for  the  future  historian  who  may  want  to  know  Douglas 
as  he  was  and  all  his  aspirations  for  the  good  of  the  people.  In 
addition  to  this,  he  delivered  addresses  at  several  cities  where 
joint  debates  between  Douglas  and  Lincoln  had  been  held  in 
the  campaign  of  1858.  The  attention  given  him  by  the  people 
attested  their  interest  in  the  subject,  but  also  was  a  strong  evi- 
dence of  their  affection  for  Mr.  Stevenson. 

As  an  evidence  of  the  kindliness  and  affectionate  esteem  in 
which  he  was  held  by  all  with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  it  might 
be  stated  that  he  survived  the  three  men  who  were  his  opponents 
for  Congress  and  was  one  of  the  pall-bearers  for  each. 

If  Mr.  Stevenson  was  the  ideal  official,  careful  in  the  strict 
and  courteous  discharge  of  every  duty,  jealous  of  his  own  rights 
and  most  willing  to  accord  to  others  what  he  demanded  for  him- 
self, he  yet,  in  his  home  life,  was  the  true  husband,  the  kind, 
indulgent  father.  Married  on  the  20th  of  December,  1866,  to 
Miss  Latitia  Green,  the  younger  daughter  of  Reverend  Lewis 
W.  Green,  President  of  Center  College,  Danville,  Kentucky,  they 
lived  that  life  which  "makes  home  a  heaven  upon  earth"  until 
December  25,  1913,  when  Mrs.  Stevenson  passed  away,  leaving 
her  devoted  husband  and  three  children. 

On  June  14,  1914,  Mr.  Stevenson  passed  away.  In  his 
death  Illinois  lost  the  man  who  had  contributed  much  to  its 
official  civic  life,  and  the  nation  lost  one  whom  it  honored  and 
loved. 


Hon.   Lewis  D.   Erwin 


124 

Lewis  DuBois  Erwin 

Was  born  at  Plattsburg,  New  York,  July  1,  1815.  Mr.  Erwin 
came  to  Schuyler  County  in  1839,  and  lived  there  practically 
until  the  day  of  his  death,  which  took  place  Saturday,  March  7, 
1914.  At  the  time  of  his  arrival  in  Rushville  the  town  was  the 
political  center  in  that  part  of  the  State  known  as  the  Military 
Tract.  It  was  the  home  of  Robert  Blackwell,  Colonel  T.  Lyle 
Dickey,  General  James  W.  Singleton,  Cyrus  Walker,  and  other 
prominent  men  known  all  over  the  State.  Mr.  Erwin  was  a 
quiet,  dignified  young  man  and  indulged  in  none  of  the  boister- 
ous pastimes  which  occupied  the  time  of  too  many  men  of  his 
age.  While  not  taking  life  too  seriously  he  realized  that  an 
honest  course  in  business,  temperance  in  life  and  conduct  were 
sure  assets  in  the  world.  He  was  appointed  a  deputy  sheriff, 
and  when  the  sheriff  went  to  the  Mexican  war  he  performed  the 
duties  of  the  office.  In  1846  he  was  elected  as  a  representative 
in  the  State  Legislature  from  Schuyler  County,  in  1850  he  was 
elected  sheriff  of  the  county,  in  1852  he  was  elected  clerk  of 
the  circuit  court,  and  in  1856,  1858  and  1860  he  was  elected  as 
representative  in  the  Legislature.  In  his  official  capacity  he 
first  became  acquainted  with  Senator  Douglas  and  this  acquaint- 
ance ripened  into  the  very  strongest  friendship,  which  lasted 
while  the  Senator  lived.  He  was  in  the  Legislature  in  1861. 
when  Senator  Douglas  came  to  Springfield  to  deliver  his  famous 
speech.  Mr.  Erwin  differed  with  those  who  did  not  want  Doug- 
las to  talk.  Some  of  tliem  afterwards  regretted  their  action  and 
became  prominent  in  the  war.  He  stood  by  Douglas  in  his 
declaration  there  were  but  two  parties — Union  men  and  traitors. 
He  was  a  true  friend  of  Governor  Yates  and  voted  to  uphold 
the  hands  of  the  State  executive  in  all  matters  looking  to  the 
placing  of  Illinois  in  the  front  rank  of  the  defenders  of  the 
Union.  In  1863  Governor  Yates  appointed  Mr.  Erwin  as  one  of 
the  commissioners  to  distribute  money  voted  by  the  State  to  the 
soldiers.  This  took  him  to  the  front,  but  lie  not  only  performed 
the  duties  of  the  position  but  looked  carefully  after  the  wants 
of  the  soldiers  and  his  report  was  the  means  of  helping  many 
an  Illinois  regiment.  In  his  home  town,  he  was  one  of  the  prime 
movers  in  securing  Rushville  its  only  railroad  and  after  he  had 
passed  "three  score  and  ten,"  he  unaided  and  alone  maintained 
a  free  public  library.  He  had  nearly  rounded  a  full  century 
when  death  called  him,  and  for  more  than  three  quai-ters  of 
that  time  he  had  gone  among  the  people  of  Rusliville,  all  of 
whom  lionored  and  loved  him,  and  his  life  was  a  benediction 
to  all. 

William  Taylor  Davidson 

Was  bom  in  the  city  of  Petersburg,  Illinois,  on  February  8, 
1837.  Before  he  was  two  years  old  his  parents  removed  to 
Lewisto^vn,  Illinois.     At  the  age  of  four  years  he  began  attend- 


125 

ing  school,  in  a  log  school  house,  and  in  that  day  there  was  only 
three  or  four  months  of  school  each  year,  and  the  teacher  was 
paid  by  the  patrons  of  the  school.  lie  early  achieved  a  liking 
for  the  printing  business  and  became  an  apprentice  in  the  local 
newspaper.  Earl}^  in  1858  he  became  part  owner  of  the  Fulton 
Democrat,  and  in  the  fall  of  that  year  became  its  sole  owner, 
and  so  remained  until  his  death  on  Januaiy  3,  1915, 

He  was  one  of  the  youngest  editors  in  the  State  during  tlie 
senatorial  campaign  of  1858,  but  Senator  Douglas  had  been  a 
frequent  visitor  at  his  home  and  he  not  only  knew  and  loved  him 
— he  worshiped  him.  Through  the  columns  of  his  paper  and  as 
a  speaker,  he  gave  him  most  loyal  and  enthusiastic  support.  His 
interest  in  Senator  Douglas  was  more  than  that  of  one  i^oli- 
tician  for  another — he  believed  in  Douglas,  he  loved  him  as  a 
man — every  fibre  of  his  being  responded  when  the  name  of 
Douglas  was  mentioned,  and  he  rejoiced  as  much  as  one  could 
at  his  victories  and  his  defeat  was  a  personal  calamity  to  the 
young  editor.  As  years  went  by  he  felt,  while  being  exceeded 
by  none  in  his  admiration  for  Lincoln  that  the  people  were  not 
giving  to  the  memory  of  Douglas  that  honor  and  respect  that 
was  due  the  great  man  and  his  achievements. 

In  1908  Mr.  Davidson  was  one  of  the  speakers  at  three  of 
the  places  where  the  Lincoln-Douglas  debates  w^ere  held.  In 
his  address  at  Freeport,  he  concluded  his  address  as  follows : 

"Too  aged  and  feeble  for  this  loving  duty,  mischooled  in 
oratory,  1  am  here  pleading  with  my  fellow  countrymen  to  help 
me  bring  back  to  glowing  life  the  long  dead  and  misunderstood, 
if  not  forgotten,  Douglas.  When  the  truth  of  histoiy  is  made 
plain — when  the  rounded  centennial  of  the  great  debate  shall 
be  honored  in  this  fair  city  of  Freeport,  a  grateful  nation  in 
its  Hall  of  Fame,  high  up  beside  the  name  of  the  immortal  Lin- 
coln, will  have  placed  in  letters  of  living  light  the  adored  name 
of  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas." 

What  a  splendid  tribute !  And  yet  it  but  faintly  echoed 
the  sentiments  of  love  and  affection  which  have  increased  with 
receding  years. 

Of  all  the  editors  who  supported  Senator  Douglas,  Mr. 
Davidson  was  the  only  one  living  when  the  dead  Senator's  one 
hundredth  anniversary  was  celebrated. 


--JS^ 


I 


